day three: redemption & exemptions

Character was drawing red exes all over the calendar. It was September 4th. He wasn't quite sure where, or why, all the time had gone. And even though it all went wrong, he though to himself, I'll stand before the lord of song with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah.

No. No. That was a lie. There were criticisms, too. He was justifiably bitter and cynical. He searched for a meaning, a reason. Was it Fall already? It wasn't, of course; not for another 17 days. But still. He never paid as much attention to equinoxes and solstices as he did to calendar pages. In his mind, his days were numbered, and every new month meant ripping away the dead husk of the old one, replete with arrow wounds where X had marked a spot of misery or misfortune — or maybe just misremembering.

Last night he had ended up on the phone with a girl he knew from high school. They talked until all the plumbers and magicians were at home, safe in bed from wracking self-doubt and dreams of career suicide. He could never quite figure what they saw in each other. He had started, as a way to escape a conversation he was too bored not to have, to write, blindly flying across a spare piece of lined paper that had been lying within reach. This had not let up overnight. He was writing everything, everywhere. By now the September page had been filled to bursting with his thoughts and his exes. He contemplated stutteringly turning the page to continue on with his work, but thought better of it. Time was inconstant enough, making a lunatic ass of himself whenever sanity sought to control him, without obnoxiously speeding through the remaining months of the year in a sad fit of excess. He wasn't even writing, he was dimly aware, anything worth reading. Just —

He gave up and went to answer the doorbell. He didn't recognize the face behind the peephole. It was solemn, unsmiling. He wasn't in the mood tonight. Tonight...

Tonight he was in the mood for dancing. For painting. For something. For anything. Tonight he was in the mood to transcend everything and go straight to fifth base. His birthday was in a few weeks. That was reason enough.

A fly buzzed furiously by. This one was alone, and smaller, than the ones that had visited during the summer. Like a death throe from the greater entity of flies, a desperado that refused to land. He laughed at himself for not really making sense. It was reason enough.