Cold Day
A man jolts upright, his day not having intended to start so abruptly. Instantly he rises. Unable to conventionally breathe, he makes a dash for the toilet, raiding the tissue to empty his nose and wipe his face from the muck that has gathered from the hours of previously laying in bed. The immediate struggle to breathe, heightened by the excessive brightness of the toilet light, kicks too many wheels into motion. Only upon checking his watch to see the clock strike three does the adrenaline of the day subside into a slow sense of delirium. Groaning for branded eucalyptus oil, he lumbers back to his bed. Immediately he is too warm under the covers, his body already beginning the brutal spin cycle of awakening before the mind could cancel such a typically cheap transaction. Soon he is too cold, left exposed to the room's unheated temperature. A headache pounds, though not heavily enough to stop his mind from endlessly whirring. Tonight the mind's theme of imagination was an at