I used to love to look at myself in the mirror. If you stare long enough, you start to look like a stranger to yourself. You start to see the person that others see and not the person you think you are. In my youth, I liked the result. No, I wasn't ever some good looking actor but I was a person who was filled with purpose.
I look in the mirror now. I see the start of a double chin. I see the puffy, fat pockets that surround my eyes. I see the gray strands of hair that twist in odd directions notifying anyone they see that the cells that live inside are breaking down. The little cell walls are deteriorating. I have grown old before my time. I see a deep sadness in me. I am a beaten man. I walk away from the mirror and go lay back on the bed.
I return to looking at the popcorn ceiling. I really thought I was going to make something with my life. I thought that I would have some sort of accomplishment that I would be proud of. What do I have? No real occupation, no wife, no children. Hell, I haven't even had a girl that I have dated for more than three months. My only friend that I still speak to seems to still talk to me more out of obligation than anything else. I'm lucky if I talk to Rick five times a year. I am suddenly hit with a strange thought. What if I died right now? What if I had a fucking heart attack right now? How long would it be before anyone would even notice? This spurred on another macabre thought. Who would even attend my funeral? The only definite people I could come up with was Rick and my mother and I'm not sure either would even shed a tear. Wow!!!!!
I feel myself spiraling down into darkness. I stare some more at the little white globs of ceiling material above my head. After a while I can see shapes. There's a woman's face, a little doggy with a long tail, a smiling turtle, and a dancing devil.
I wake up sometime later. It's nighttime and I am shocked that I have slept the day away. I immediately notice that the bad, acidic feeling in my stomach is still permeating. I imagine a frothy liquid flowing through me, eating at my insides. I look up at the ceiling and look for the shapes I had been staring at before I drifted off. I can find them but really they don't look like anything anymore. They are just little globs of white goo, frozen in mid drop.
