The Ringtone

He picks up the remote and mutes the television. Jaw clenched, shoulders slumped forward like a flower aching for water, he lifelessly stands in front of the couch.

“Fuck”, he mutters to himself, exasperated.

This is the way he stood when she left. The scene plays in his head like a slideshow with sound and touch — the door slams and sends a gust of air through him, lifting his long, thin hair and shirt as it travels outward. Every muscle in his body wants to lie down and never move again, but his skeleton keeps him standing. His eyes glaze over, both in the past and present, with the same lifelessness he’s felt many times before. Forlorn and broken-hearted once again.

“Such is life,” his father’s voice echoes in his head.

Sitting just barely underneath the coffee table is his McDonalds nametag. It screams “MIKE” at him in bold capital letters.

Finally, he makes his way to the sink, where he keeps his cleaning supplies, and reaches behind the counter for the bucket that had been haphazardly thrown there hours ago. A star-studded picture frame lies face down on the path to the bathroom. He kicks it, but the picture frame merely slides and comes to a stop, as if to defy him out of spite. Mike begins to feel the fire ignite under his skin and his body tenses up, bracing for an impact that won’t happen. Eyes darting around his one-bedroom apartment, he searches hungrily for something to break in another fit of unbridled rage.

The pleasant tune of his phone’s ringtone breaks the horrible silence. Mike begins walking again, stepping over the picture frame. He lets the ringing continue without regard for who may be calling him — Mike enjoys his ringtone.

He holds the bucket with as little of his hand touching the plastic surface as possible, in an effort to dodge the brown clumps lining the inside. As he fills it, his right foot begins to lightly tap the ceramic floor. Mike plunges the sponge in and out of the water — all to the beat of the unrelenting music blaring from the other room.

He tries his absolute best to take comfort in one of the few things in life that can drown out the unwelcome thoughts.

Setting the bucket down beside the pool of clumpy, milky white vomit, Mike takes a deep breath through his nose and begins.

Second by second, the sludge pool becomes a pond, which in turn becomes a puddle, from which it finally thins out to be a film of goop on the floor. Piece by piece, towel by towel, he cleans the mess he had made. Mike does not gag, and makes no attempt at blocking the smell from his nose.

The music ends.

He freezes mid-scrub. On his hands and knees in the brightly lit bathroom, his body remains still. Despair sets in as the remaining vomit on the cold tiled floor soaks into his clothes and wrinkles his skin. His eyes turn to glass as his vision fades once again. The slideshow in his mind takes hold, but instead of seeing her, he sees everything.

The cosmos — stars, planets, Earth, and all who inhabit it.

Every person he has ever loved, known, or heard of. Every human that ever lived past their failures and heartbreaks. All on a speck of dust suspended in space.

Mike understands now. He understands that the path to becoming better is not easy. It is not achieved by inaction, self-loathing or even escapism. It is work. Work that he is willing to do.

His cell phone begins to ring.