Malcolm Steadman will buy a gun in 49 days…

…Though he could, conceivably, buy one today.

He had saved enough money, working and not paying rent for a month and a half will do that. Garry, however, was nowhere near in sight. He could go out and buy one, today, but what of it? Without knowing where Garry was, there was simply no point. It would have to wait.

Malcolm held a bagel with cream cheese in his mouth as he used his hands to fish for keys in his pockets. He had only been in possession of the keys for minutes and he had somehow managed to misplace them in that time. The taste of breakfast was so near, but a bite now would mean that the rest of the bagel would fall and he would have none at all. It was taunting. He was hungry. He was also more concentrated on the bagel than he was on the keys. At last he found them. His hand darted out of his pocket, then stabbed the tumbler lock on the door to room 5150. Malcolm was home.

This of course was not his old apartment. No, nothing so permanent. This was a hotel room that he could pay for a week at a time.

The door creaked open, revealing a room that was as grey from misery as his shirt was of sweat. A single window to his right helped illuminate the motes of dust permanently wafting in the air. A double wide bed, though made, lay on the floor as if it were murdered. Malcolm did not need to open the solitary nightstand beside the bed to know that it held a Gideon inside of it. Opposite side of the bed was a TV as old as he. The bathroom door was open, leaving the only other room in the unit vulnerable to gaze at, its bathroom tiles as cracked and used as Malcolm’s skin.

This was his new home. He was no longer homeless.

He immediately bit into his bagel and commenced his devouring of it.

Happy day.

Malcolm Steadman needed all of this. He needed a place to shower, he needed a place to sleep. Given the seedy neighborhood he was now in (one that was definitely under an overpass) the feeling of safety was probably out of the question, but he needed the solace. All of these things were reason enough to pay for the room, but of course that was not why he had done so. This room was a means to an end. Garry was lost to him. He had not shown up to his usual bus stop, and he could not be found at his girlfriend’s mother’s house (at least not without asking). He could buy a gun today, but without Garry there was no point, he could not do it alone. So, Malcolm had to wait, and waiting meant that he had to maintain a job. Maintaining a job meant maintaining himself. Maintaining himself, well, that meant rejoining society. Few would count living in a motel room as rejoining society, but few were homeless.

Malcolm licked his fingers for what was left of the bagel that he had just engulfed.

So, here it was, his new place of residence. There was no kitchen to freak out in over the stark, harsh realities that played rugby in his head, but as he had learned over the past month or so, that was no prerequisite to his terrors. He was just as comfortable having them under a tree, in a McDonald’s, or under an overpass, and that is to say not at all. The place did not matter. Malcolm Steadman would be stalked by his epiphanies, valid, sound, true or none of the above, no matter where he went. The problem was not the place, the problem was him.

Malcolm walked over to the bed and sat down with a deep sigh. He had not felt the comfort of a mattress, had slept on the open ground, for too long. He would not be able to embrace sweet sleep on it just yet, he would have to go to work first, but sitting on it now was plenty of a reward. And so, instead of sleep, Malcolm showered.

It. Felt. Amazing.

He had no soap, had no shampoo, but a shower is more than hygiene: it’s comfort.

But it was a comfort that he could not enjoy for too long.

Malcolm’s head? It is always running. Not walking, not strolling, running. It can go at a high jog, or a self-destructive sprint. Whether or not free will was a thing, the commentary track that ticketed out behind his skull was constant.

Malcolm wished that it could be silenced, or at least slowed to a crawl. He honestly could not remember the last time he had taken a shower, and now, with the sweet release of hot water pouring down on him, his mind sprinted toward the gallons of potable water wasted. Instead of enjoying the luxury of the modern era, his mind screeched at high-speed toward the origin of water, how much of it was on the planet, how much of it was in him, and how it had granted life on an otherwise dead rock called the Earth. By the end of the shower, he did not feel relieved. He did not feel clean. He felt the strain of his mind working in overtime in every facet of his being, and he felt cold.

Malcolm could buy one today, but it wouldn’t solve anything. He would have to wait. He would have to live with his constant thinking. He would have to pretend that he was normal and maintain a job, though he was terrible at doing both. Eventually his brain would want to sprint again, eventually he would be in the throes of another existential crisis. He could deal with it a little longer, he could endure the strain. But not permanently.

Of course, nothing is permanent.

Not enough to read? There’s more…

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