0630: Carl wakes up. It’s summertime, and so the early sunshine soaks through the blinds that are made to imperfectly block out light. Groaning, he hears his alarm go off on the dresser to his right. His perceptively deflated air mattress makes it difficult for him to reach over and turn off the annoying alarm.

Why, he muses, does it only give me 9 more minutes. 9 minutes makes no sense. I always end up seeing that it’s 6:48, and think I have plenty of time. As soon as it hits 6:57 I end up scrambling to get out of bed, shower, shave, brush my teeth, get dressed and go to work in the span of 3 minutes. But the whole problem could easily be solved by just making it an integer of 10. Fuck. I only pick 6:30 every morning to pretend that each day I can get my shit together the night before and be a functioning human being.

Not surprisingly, he decides to snooze his alarm 3 more times. He sighs to himself, as he rolls his slightly overweight frame off the bed. Grabbing his phone off his small dresser/shelf turned nightstand, thank god for ikea furniture, he stumbles towards the bathroom in his shotgun style apartment.

Entering the bathroom, he stops to turn on the water. His shower is set to the temperature of pre boiling. He makes sure to see the steady flow of water before continuing to turn on the lights. He takes a second to look in the mirror above his sink. What he sees, is a dark haired individual, with prominent eyebrows, full lips, and a slightly large nose. His eyes are mixture between brown and green, although green is what he places on his driver’s license. His teeth are nice and straight, large and not the exact color of off white he would like them to be. Facial hair is something he has to get rid of every day in a futile attempt to make it seem like his black hair on his pale face is clean shaven. A shame it doesn’t grow in the optimal beard style, instead giving him a cross between neckbeard and a trailer park special. Overall, he looks average. Some people have told him he looks handsome. Some have told him he looks ugly. Carl enjoys pretending it’s more about people’s preferences, than it is about how average he looks.

Looking into his eyes, Carl sighs. Another day. He stands to his full height of five foot ten, before stumbling  a short distance to take a piss. Relieving himself, he thinks about his day. He’s almost to the end. You see, Carl is almost done with his contract. 38 more days until he can force himself to move. He likes his job, not the best, not what he pictured himself doing, but he found a strange acceptance as well as joy in the purpose he carved out for himself.

    After a few shakes, he makes his way into his porcelain tub. It had been retrofitted into a shower by attaching a shower head to a pipe, truly a modern marvel of plumbing. Cleansing himself of the sweat brought on by his apartment’s terrible insulation that did little to stop the southern summer heat, he goes through his morning shower thoughts. Losing himself in the hot steam and peaceful drumming of the water, his phone alarms him to the terrible encroachment of time.

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    Carl reluctantly bends down to turn off the water before pushing the shower curtains open. Taking a look at the mirror, he determines it’s too fogged up to shave immediately and he’ll brush his teeth while waiting for it to dissipate. In Carl’s mind, he is berating himself for not sticking with strict schedule of getting to work on time. A habit he had picked up in the last 3 months that his coworkers had silently decided to not bring up.  He confidently high steps out of the shower onto the tile floor.

In the advent of his morning departure time, he didn’t do as thorough of a job cleansing himself as he would have normally. Soap spuds lingered on the bottom of his feet. This would not have been a problem if he had had his trusty and dependable bathroom mat conveniently placed next to his tub. Alas, his bathroom mat had been hanging on his enclosed back patio to dry. The reason why it was wet in the first place is very obvious. Carl had recently decided to wash the fuzzy mat after realized he couldn’t remember the last time it was cleaned. Afraid of melting the cheap the plastic underneath, he went for air drying instead of using the dryer. Also it seemed a waste to him to just dry it by itself. What else was going to put with it? His socks? No.

With great confidence his left foot is placed flat on the floor. Immediately following, he raises his right foot still within the boundaries of the tub. At that moment, due to the momentum, change in his center of gravity, and the lack of friction that normally keeps him place, his left foot slides forward. In an almost cartoon like fashion of flailing limbs with no beneficial result, Carl’s body proceeds to do one of the  most magical phenomenon known to the planet. His body goes completely parallel to the ground. This is an amazing mixture of pure dumb anti-luck, and the ability of humans to become complacent and vulnerable while commiting to a routine. This ultimately services the goal of him eating complete shit on the ground.

The back of Carl’s head hits the hard tile floor with a sickening crunch. His eyes wide open in a mixture of shock and disbelief. For a second he thinks and hopes, that the disturbing crunch he heard was from one of the black and white tiles on the bathroom floor shattering due to his supernaturally hardened head. He feels it though, the warm liquid behind his head spreading to his neck and shoulders. Panicking his eyes move to look at the showerhead to ensure he forgot to turn off the water.

A breath of acceptance escapes his mouth. He tries to breath back in, but finds it difficult. His vision begins to tunnel. Carl tries to focus on the ceiling, hoping that he knocked the wind out of himself and that everything will be ok. He closes his eyes in hope.

Opening them, he sees a blue sky with scattered white cotton clouds making a picturesque scene in the sky.