8:13am. Cereal time. A slurry of snapping, crackling, and popping pours from a plastic bag inside of a carboard box into a bowl. Sugar lies in wait. It was a trap all along, 2% milkfat liquid drowns all the individual krispies. Now the race begins, to see how many pieces can be enjoyed before sogginess overtakes them.
William pushes his bowl a little further towards the center of the table, to indicate that he is victorious. He looks at his phone. The screen is black. No one has sent him any messages. He wondered about this. He thought, 'I'll call up Gail and ask why no one's messaged me. Maybe propose my eternal love for her. Probably just ask about the messaging though.'
He dials slowly, thinking about all the possible outcomes. 'Maybe she'll ask to go out. See a movie, I haven't seen Her yet. Maybe she'll ask to see Her. Then I can joke about how I'm not a girl and she shouldn't call me her. But, maybe she won't want to go out. Should I ask her out? Just coffee. Well, maybe just tea, she might like tea. Okay. Right.'
She didn't answer. When voice mail clicked on William got scared and hung up the phone. This made him feel like eating.
A cutting board is on the counter, on top of it two slices of 15-grain bread. William tries to think of fifteen different grains. 'I wonder if they count one grain twice. Like, yeah, we totally put fifteen grains in there, five of which are wheat, ten of which are also wheat.'
A tomato is cut into slices, and layered onto the bread. Then the slices get taken right back off, because honestly, who puts tomatoes on the bread first. Back in his right mind, William puts his choice of meat, cajun spiced chicken, on the sandwich. He Then puts on thinly sliced swiss cheese. On top of that goes a hand full of baby spinach. He tops it off with the tomatoes to keep the spinach from falling off, and what does fall off he voraciously stuffs into his mouth and chews. Ignoring the fact that it's only 9:36am, and he should probably not be eating again so soon. On top of the tomatoes he puts a zig-zag of mustard, and on top of that he paints a smiley face with hot sauce.
His sandwich gone, his cutting board full of crumbs and new nicks, he stumbles off to his bedroom.
'I'm so tired' he thinks to himself. Then he thinks, 'Can I think to someone else? Maybe that's what talking is. Talking is like thinking to someone else.' He then lays down on his bed. 'Or does he lie down? He's never particularly sure. Laying and lying about the bedroom, lying about who he's layed with. Lei'd with? Only in Hawaii.' That goes on for what feels like hours, with intermittent bouts of staring at the wall and the ceiling.
10:42am, and all of the sudden William didn't want food so much as a delicious early death. He cracked open a beer, started drinking that while frying butter on a pan. He didn't want to fry anything, he just liked melting butter on a pan. Coffee was brewing in his pot, he'd mix it with his beer, and see if he would vomit or not. His money was on not. But he didn't think he'd enjoy it. The beer coffee mixture that is, he'd probably enjoy the not vomiting the same way he usually enjoyed not doing things that weren't pleasant. 'Maybe I'll spend the rest of today enjoying not getting shot and mugged. But, that seems like a dangerous thing to try, if I screw that up I'll be really particularly unhappy. Maybe I should aim lower, I'll just enjoy not having any rectal exams from doctors. No sir, I haven't had a surprise rectal exam from a doctor since that time Mr. Allen visited when I was sick from school for the 12th day in a row. I was never sick again. Okay, well I was definitely sick again, but I didn't miss a day of school.'
All that food and thinking, and William hadn't even made it halfway through the day yet. 11:42am. 'Huh. At least 42 is a good number. Now do I make a wish, or go for walk?'
he wondered.
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