Post-Easter Window Teaser

He didn't feel like doing much of anything.  In the morning there was a blanket of gray unfurling itself in the sky.  You could say there was a fog, a haze, the imminent chance of rain -- but he just called it shitty, and standing his ground, didn't care to do much of anything.  But there was coffee: he had to smuggle it from home, force of habit, and said force gestated from an Obsessive-Compulsive need for constant, consistent, ever-demanding morning routine -- centered around food and drink, mostly drink, and in this case, in most cases, it was coffee.  Taking another sip, quietly slurping (he always apologized, or brought his slurping to light mid-conversation), the combination of dark, full flavors/nuances washing over his palate, he realized he left his toothbrush at home, safe and sound in his little porcelain giraffe, residing on the shelf above his toilet.  It was Easter Sunday -- he was condo-sitting for some old friends, a married couple: he had known the groom since College.  He imagined actually sitting on the condo, if that were possible, the same way a hen sits on her eggs.  No one could penetrate the forcefield while he was sitting atop, coffee in hand, feeling a pointed apathy outside of the immediate task at hand, making sure the condo doesn't disappear, spontaneously combust, immolate itself in a dark desperation as its true owners are off galavanting with their family, in Pennsylvania.

He leaned, bracing himself over the counter: his grinder, travel french-press (plastic, ugh!) bag of whole-bean coffee, and tiny ovular tupperware of raw sugar strewn about, so he could feel some inkling of stability while the rest of him couldn't focus or find the energy/care to much of anything.  But he had no toothbrush.  He muttered: lame, so fucking lame, and thought to raid his friend's washroom for some anonymous mouthwash.  Circling around the island countertop towards the bathroom, a pair of window-washers, dutifully scrubbing the urban sludge along the adjacent condos caught his eye.  He decided to go in for a closer look, pressing his forehead against the glass sliding-door to the patio, his visage absorbing the cold almost instantaneously.  

The workers hung there, inert, in stasis.  He smiled, strangely comforted.  It had been almost a year since his divorce, since he'd last published, since he'd sold the rights of his last book to that obscure cable channel he'd never heard of.  There was a moment where he couldn't tell if he was happy, starting to heal, or just now, on Easter, experiencing the rush that he'll never have to see any of this, or her, again.