The Little Things

Jeremy’s day began with the utmost triumph: perfectly toasted toast. The bread, teetering on that oft-sought step between cooked and burnt, took butter and jelly in equal measure and crunch-squished between his teeth, every bite a testament to his culinary prowess.

Jeremy’s day continued with a lesser, though not inconsiderable victory: the shower was hot when he stepped in. The streams above his head, which so often yielded nothing but cold water thanks to Mr. Paulaski’s daily neverending bath, today lapped gentle and warm across his back. He scrubbed in peace, still proud of the toast.

Next was the drag of his favorite comb through his messy hair, which—normally uncooperative—yielded to each plastic stroke. He tilted his head, considered the calmed shock of black atop it in the mirror, and beamed. The crack in the center only slightly distorted his nose. Brushing his teeth and getting dressed and getting ready continued the trend of minor but not trivial successes, and it was with an unusual bounce in his step that he took the ten paces from his bathroom to his front door.

He nodded at the Collection, lining three walls of his studio at various wobbling heights. Monitors glowed, LEDs blinked, fans hummed, and a lone Apple logo blazed; all, it seemed, in cheerful response.

Jeremy relished the triumphs of the morning, grabbed his broken doorknob, and stepped outside ready to seize the day.

Judging by the wave of icy water a passing car immediately kicked up; the suddenly mussed hair soaking on top of his head; the muffling gray of the sky, and the flat tire on his Honda across the street, the day would do some seizing of its own.

He still had the toast.

Opposite Day

David Roe was very much alone.

Understandably so. At parties, he was the one in the corner muttering judgment and incessantly tapping his smartphone. He didn't like loud music, he didn't like to drink, conversation seemed to bore him. Those who braved social interaction with the pale, dark-eyed man in the corner felt they could very well have been dead or chickens or on fire for all he cared. For some reason, this air of bitter disinterest seemed to net him more-than-occasional lays, but every woman who went to bed with him couldn't shake the feeling that to him, the sex was pretty much masturbation.

The fact he cut up dead people for a living didn't help his social life.

In truth, to David conversation was at best white noise and at worst something akin to a swarm of particularly eloquent mosquitoes whining in his ears. He didn't hate people, not really, but they were so damned boring most of the time. He'd find himself tuning Scott this or Jen that out at the bar, wondering how big Scott's heart was, how much Jen's martinis had soured her liver. He had better conversations with corpses--at least they told him useful things, like what type of knife created that wound, or how many hours it'd been since the final breath.

David Roe, county medical examiner, was very much alone.

But he wasn't lonely.

Had rehearsal tonight. Met a cute girl. Actively weighing the awkwardness of getting shot down by said cute girl against the awesomeness of her saying yes to a date.

Jeremy was not a lonely man.

Every day he met hundreds of people, sometimes thousands. Talked for hours about every conceivable subject, argued at length--often won!--on many as well. Always, at that point, raised his skinny fists in victory and crowed triumph to the heavens. Or his ceiling. Mainly his ceiling. And often, oh, so often, he had sex. With women. Well, people who claimed they were women. With chat rooms, it was possible they were lying, but Jeremy didn't want to consider the possibility.

Jeremy was not a lonely man.

But, bathed in the light of his computer monitor at two AM, stripped to his boxers and surrounded by blinking, beeping, humming, looming electronica, for some reason he felt very, very much alone.