• You awaken to the rhythmic pattern of lukewarm rain hitting the flat roof of your apartment. It currently is 2:45 pm. Petrichor aromas seep into the bedroom, melding with the sour-sweet stickiness of half-ingested energy drinks, long since abandoned and so flat a band director would have a nervous breakdown. This is further complimented by the musk of undisturbed piles of t-shirts and skinny jeans, caked in aging sweat and still cool with the air that tends to settle near the floor. Rolling off of your mattress, you tumble the short distance past your misaligned box spring and onto your carpeted floor. A few empty plastic bottles and previously unscathed aluminum soda cans break your fall, thankfully. You’ll have to acquire more soon, or the impending caffeine migraine might threaten your life. Disturbing them only forces you to acknowledge you won’t be returning to the silent relief of sleep until the sun gives up its usual racket later tonight. You, unfortunately, have no choice but to deal with the rest of the day.

    Your eyes pry open despite themselves. Another on a long list of betrayals you are sure you will not be forgetting any time soon. Your eyelids brush the dry, blurriness to the edges of your vision and you emerge from your comfortable pile of garbage with all of the grace of a newborn giraffe and fumble around to shut the window.

    You stand on your mattress in order to reach it and can feel thick, heavy summer air complimenting the light misting of your fingers that breaches the window screen. You can see rain bombarding the city like God accidentally hit the “flood earth” button again, but you can never quite get a full view of the street in front of the apartment complex. The window is too high up on the wall to adequately allow any person of any reasonable height to be able to view anything of note besides clouds, birds, and the occasional stray plane. You don’t pay any of these things any more mind than they pay you. To The birds and fre ...
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