INSIDE THE CLOUD

In front of the mirror, or in front of the fridge, was where he usually found himself. Like a drunk waking up after a blackout, he would be staring at his own eyes or at a Tupperware container, and each would hold so many mysteries that he would have to physically make his face relax.

Now he was tired all the time, a deep nerve-weariness that tried always to pull him inwards. Padding across the cold floor, morning after grey morning, feeling the cold rush up his legs like a frightened animal. He was living, being, but not aware.

And when, in those rare hours of lucidity, he would walk outside, conversations, interactions—the sharp shock of that other world—would puncture his awareness so completely, so wholly, that he would take weeks to recover.

He watches out the window, through a cracked continent of broken glass, as the world lets itself pass in the clear air. Up here, he thinks. Up here is where I am now.