Member-only story
Nobody is Watching
A man wakes up in the morning and notices his mouth feels like sandpaper and smells like old milk.
Nobody else is around. It was another Thursday in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He thought, I need a humidifier.
After a minute, he rolls off his white-ish sheets and towards his bathroom. He stumbles twice. Once when stepping onto a pillow that fell onto his bedroom’s hardwood floor. Once while avoiding a pile of books that are stacked on the floor.
His pear-shaped body doesn’t navigate groggy mornings very well.
There is a general look of disapproval on his face.
He feels like a klutz but gets to the bathroom where his reflection reminds him that he’s getting old. At 36, nobody mistakes him for a young man like they did six or seven years ago. He looks at himself for a moment and notices an ever-receding hairline and a spotty beard that hides a scar on his left cheek.
Like most people, the man generally doesn’t like or dislike how he looks. But he sees every blemish, every wrinkle, every shiny new advancement of scalp.
After an electric toothbrush dismisses the foulness of his mouth, a collection of teeth appears in the mirror. They’re fine teeth. Except for the chip on the middle-left tooth which he received when eating a bagel in summer. It’s winter now. Two weeks…
