Throwing the buzzing alarm clock clear across the room, Gary relished the sweet sound of cracking metal. Sure, it was the fourth alarm clock to meet its demise that month, but he had enough emergency backups. Besides, it hadn't shut up even when he hit the button---it must have been broken. He turned away from the yellow light streaming in from outside and huffed, pulling the nearest thing over his face to hide away from the sun. Whatever it was, it was smallish, dark. He squinted and pulled a face, throwing the underwear away from him and rolling over again, wrapped up so tightly in his sheet that he had to wriggle out of it and flop, exhausted, on top of the crumpled blankets. Then he closed is eyes to continue hating the headache and cottonmouth he had to endure until, most likely, the next day. Gary had taught himself to stop drinking hard liquor, then went ahead and did it again, at about eleven last night. Why, he couldn't remember, but sooner or later that luxury would wear off too. He remember what he drank, no doubt---tequila, and then some random offbrand whisky he'd picked up because it was the first thing he saw.

He stood and wobbled, working his tongue through the sticky sandpaper that he called a mouth, as if he ate glue followed by a mouthful of beach. Gathering up his dirty clothes---why were they scattered all over his room?---he tossed them into the hamper and grabbed some fresh things from the closet, a pair of plain whitewash jeans that hung loose and low off his hips and a buttondown shirt that he rarely buttoned at all. Tossing them and the rest over his arm, he went to the bathroom across the hall from his bedroom and tossed it all onto the countertop beside the door, stepping into a shower that wavered somewhere beneath hypothermia-inducing. He shivered, worked hard to get himself clean in the barrage of ice bullets, and shuddered hard, getting out of the shower quickly and rubbing himself hard with a towel to get some feeling back into his body.

Why was he hating everything? Looking at himself in the mirror, Gary grimaced. His hair, a deep reddish-maroon he liked to dye, stood on end and over one eye not of his own will. It never listened to him. The eye it was hiding was dark. Had he been in a fight? He wasn't one to fight. He wasn't much of a fan of confrontation, either. Sighing and blinking hard, Gary turned the light off and buttoned only one button on his shirt, shuffling out of the bathroom and to the stairs that led directly into the kitchen. The thought of food made him feel like gagging, but he had to eat something. It was just the question of what, and how, exactly, it would interact with the chemicals that had yet to leave his body.