Toast

When you wake up in the morning, the first thing you do is make eggs.

You stare blankly at the egg tray in the fridge wondering how many to make.

You're home alone, which is good because you only have five eggs.

Eventually, you decide and pull three eggs out of the fridge.

You're not hungry enough for four, and it would be a shame to leave a single egg in the fridge, you reason.

Two makes more sense, but then you'd feel obligated to make something to go with it- toast, perhaps.

You contemplate this as the cool fridge air encourages your desire to sneeze.

You don't feel like fucking with toast.

Toast means getting the bread and toasting it and trying to butter both pieces before they get cold but after they stop being hot enough to burn your fingertips.

You just make the three eggs instead.

Your eyes unfocus as you stare at the chipping white coating on your stove as the eggs heat atop melted butter from a gentle flame.

The cat cries at you from the floor

The cat is always crying at you from the floor.

You lie down to join him and let him stand on your chest. Hard paws with sharp claws dig into the flesh between your breasts and you eventually need to push him off.

Still unfocused, but unsettled by the silence, you put on the television.

Nothing good is on, but you find yourself watching the news.

The cat mewls at you from the floor and you lean down to pet him, not taking your eyes off of the tv.

An advertisement for depression medication comes on.

You wonder if people really find comfort in smooth white pills, if pressed powder can really stop the poison in their heads.

You wonder if it could stop the poison in your head.

You pick the cat up and cradle him to your chest like a babe.

He hates this, and he leaves the room, he leaves you.

By now the smoke alarm is screaming and isn't that just what you need with a headache like this?

An upwards jab with the heel of your hand knocks the menace off the wall, and you disembowel it, smooth black batteries clicking against the dining room table.

You check on the cat, and find him curled up on his bed, ears flat against his head but otherwise unbothered.

You pour yourself coffee left over in the pot from the night before and, while it whirls on a glass dish for 1:11 in the microwave, you turn off the stove.

Eggs, brown and black and crisper than snap peas scrape off the skillet into the trash can.

You leave the skillet to soak, for a number of days determined by how long you estimate it will be before your mother screams about it minus one.

You retrieve your coffee and the first sip feels like happiness.

Every sip thereafter tastes like apathy, like water.

About an hour later, you realize you've yet to eat and you make your way to the kitchen.

There's no sauce for pasta, no soups without celery, and nothing in the freezer that doesn't need thawing first.

You turn to the fridge and find the only things that look appealing to be yogurt and cream cheese with no bagels to put it on.

The yogurt is blueberry, and you've lost interest already.

Looking towards the fridge door, you spot eggs and decide to give those a second go.

As you roll one egg in your palm, the other sits innocently in crate. There are only two eggs left.

Resting your forehead on the freezer half on the refrigerator, you try to work up the energy to cook them.

But, your brain insists, with only two eggs you'd really ought to make toast.

You don't feel like fucking with toast.

You nurse a cold cup of coffee all day, and go to bed that night without bothering to eat.