Jeff

Jeff lay on the floor looking at his fridge. He couldn’t remember when he’d removed the bottom panel or why for that matter but he knew he had promised to put it back tomorrow. It certainly wasn’t yesterday, or the day before, he’d probably removed it 14 months ago or maybe more and it was still removed. Tomorrow never comes. Would tomorrow ever come?

Jeff wasn’t drunk, don’t get me wrong he wasn’t sober, but he wasn’t drunk. He was a mixture of drunk and resigned. Resigned to a life so ordinary that lying on the floor and musing about a detached part of a fridge for 23 minutes not only seemed perfectly normal but also quite comforting. The fact that it was 11.26am was immaterial. Time really didn't matter anymore. He wasn’t a complete hopeless case, he could still think clearly enough to know he should pull himself together but he didn’t quite have the energy or will to act on that thought.

He couldn’t really even say why he was there, why he found solace in the bottom of a bottle and the bottom of a fridge before lunch on a Tuesday. It just seemed that of all the options available this was the best, the easiest, the most attractive. 

If this was a movie there’d be a kid, there was always a kid, his kid or the local hooligan or the concerned girl next door, a kid who’d befriend him and via a tortured friendship make him see the error of his ways. But movies are make believe. There is no kid, no saviour. Jeff knew full well that the only person that could save him from his malaise was himself. But the floor, the fridge, the Fernet seemed just fine right now.