Misrebelia

Staring at a blank page, I can feel the dark corners of exhaustion advancing in on my vision, though I'm kept awake by his violent coughing from the next room.
The hands on the clock read 7:37, with the second hand halfways to the '1', just the same as they've been stuck at for the last four days. I keep thinking that I need to get him to fix it, but I know as well as he does that if anyone could find a way to wreck a clock more than it already is, it'd be him.
Taking a drink from the glass next to me, and instantly forgetting the sensation, even as I swallow, I look back down at my desk. Fifty empty lines on the page. From the road outside, and ambulance races past, casting a new red backdrop on my otherwise bleak surroundings for a moment.
I bring the glass to my lips again, to discover that it's empty. My own indifference is nearly overwhelming. It's not so much my body's need for water as it is my physical defeat pushing away any other desires. I don't just want to sleep. I simply need it at this point.

My chest hurts.
Really hurts.
I get up, pulling my face out of the arm of the couch, only to have my head feel light, and my ears ringing. Steadying myself on the lamp on the end table, I stumble to catch it. She's tired enough as it its. It's hardly fair of me to add another broken lamp to everything on her plate.
I stumble to the kitchen, and blindly clasp the nearest glass to me, and hold it under the running faucet, splashing water onto my wrist and knuckles. I take a sip, and it tastes very faintly of beer... the same as the cause of the splatter on my shirt, if I remember correctly.
I down the glass in one gulp, and feeling more conscious, tiptoe back to the living room where I woke up. I can see one of my shoes lazily tossed aside underneath the table in the middle of the room. I'll look for the other in the morning.
I peel my shirt off of my lanky torso, and lay back down on the couch, face-up, and close my eyes to the sound of an ambulance rushing somewhere. In a weird kind of way, it's very soothing, the thought that the world is still spinning all the worst ways.

I give up. Not tonight. Maybe coffee tomorrow will help me think of something. What I wouldn't give to be worry-free for a couple hours.