Lost Time

Pins and needles worked their way up Ted’s arm, rousing him from a drifting sleep and pulling up a vague memory of the one time he tried acupuncture. How long ago had that been, he wondered. When he fluttered open his eyes, he looked straight out the bedside window and into a perfectly opaque, grey-white nothingness. With a few stuttering blinks, he tried to clear the sleep from his eyes, as well as the confusing image. After a moment, he saw great wisps of darker grey floating far beyond and realized he was looking at a bleak, cloud-filled sky. Not a single stitch of blue nor ray of golden light slipped through the dense coverage. The near-complete lack of color and emptiness gave him a disoriented feeling of being blind, so he moved his head a few inches to the left and tried to soak in the deep red of the drying ilex berries and velvety emerald bedside lamp - flecked with bits of shimmering gold - both of which sat on the nightstand, but his eyes moved back to the bleakness of the cloudy sky; a perfect homage to the way he was feeling today.

The antique clock next to the uninspiring lamp read 2 pm. Ted knew that the day would have to start at some point. He tried to remember what it was he was doing before he flopped down face-first into his unmade bed. Finding the energy to clean, maybe? Finding the inspiration to go to the gym? Finding… something. Pushing himself up onto his one good arm, he let the other dangle uselessly as it screamed back to life. He rolled over to sit upon the edge of the bed and his feet landed with practiced precision on top of his slippers. Standing and gliding his feet over the hardwood floors, he eventually managed to get the slippers on with minimal effort as he walked into the bathroom.

Ted rubbed his eyes as he wavered in front of the sink, turning on the cold water. He looked for himself in the mirror through the starburst that swam in his vision and was astonished to see a doppelganger staring back at him, looking completely grizzled. From sleeping on his stomach, he had pushed many wrinkles into his face. Ted tried to smooth the skin back and noticed the pattern of lines around his eyes, as he squinted, were far more numerous than he last remembered, and his frown lines were etched deep around the mouth. There was even a crease on his forehead that looked like it needed to be ironed out. As well, his sunken eyes sat deep in a ring of dark circles. At his temples, there were sprouts of grey that seemed to have weeded overnight, and it seemed a streak was beginning at his widow’s peak. Ted flipped on the vanity lights to get a better look at the spreading grey and recoiled from the stranger staring back.

“Well fuck.” He murmured to himself, and then immediately turned off the light. “Worst power nap ever.” Ted said to his disheveled reflection, and then splashed cold water on his face.

In the kitchen, he chugged a glass of water and set more to boil in the kettle. He hoped that a good burst of hydration would plump out the skin and clear the darkness settling under his eyes. He thought about the blotches on his skin, too, and pondered what he could throw together from the kitchen to revive his appearance. There was some aloe he could cut up, that would help to hydrate. A bottle of witch hazel in the bathroom to tone and tighten. Some fresh lemon always brightened up the skin. Didn’t he buy some acai berries yesterday? Lots of antioxidants in those. As for the hair, well, those greys had been coming in for some time now. Nothing to do but dye it or embrace it. And come to think of it, his husband had just bought him some illuminating hair styling crème. Ted decided the greys would stay. He was well on his way to becoming a silver fox; fingers crossed.

As he ran through this laundry list of sorts, Ted made a fresh cup of coffee and a piece of toast. Time wavered restlessly around him, and instead of finding himself applying a rejuvenating mask and helping out his digestion with flavorful fruits, he realized he was sitting at the breakfast table staring out the wide windows that his 6th floor apartment offered of the unobstructed, listless sky. Ted looked down at the mug in his hands to see it nearly empty, next to him on the table was a half-eaten croissant, and beyond that an uncorked bottle of hazelnut liqueur from the morning's first - or maybe second - cup of coffee. It seemed time had slipped away from him again as he let his mind swim with its many thoughts. He realized now that productivity was what he was trying to find earlier, and that it would most definitely elude him.

“Ah, screw it.” Ted said out loud to an empty kitchen.

Realizing that he would not accomplish anything today, he reached for the bottle of liqueur

A stupor began to fill Ted’s body, it overflowed and crowded around him in the apartment. Usually, when he felt like this, a long bike ride, or a walk to the bottom of the hill where the riverbend met with the endless ocean, could snap some sense into him. But the sky was growing darker by the hour and didn’t invite confidence for a dry adventure. Instead, he pulled out his husband’s yoga mat, pushed the sofa and coffee table up against the wall, and splayed out on the floor. Stretching always made Ted feel like a cat, perhaps because the one yoga pose he could remember was called something like cat-cow, but more likely because he would stretch his arms and legs out in inconceivable positions and then be tired from the effort and ready for another nap. Instead of doing any of that, he cast his arms and legs out in a wide star shape and let his body melt into the hardwood floor. He often liked to jest with his friends that staring into oblivion was a favorite pastime of his, but today it seemed to be quite the opposite of a joke. The longer he gazed at the ceiling and the lighting fixture, the more he could laser in on the minute details. For instance: the dome of the light casing was mottled with age, and filled with more than just a few dead bugs, and cracks gathered around the nucleus of an old water leak that he never got around to fixing, and created a nebulous of fine lines that reached to the outer edges of the inset ceiling panel. Ted wondered if - like his own body seemed to show this morning - everything in the world was beginning to fall apart.

The thought rushed out of him with a quickness and immediately came crashing back down. The pressure sought to crush his lungs, the intensity of the moment causing him to thrash into a sitting position, clutching his chest and gulping in air. The sensation fired through his nerves and sparked all along his limbs. The room grew too big and too small all at once. He had the sinking feeling that he would expand to a size that would bust the walls, or perhaps shrink down and be forgotten amongst the tiny granules of dust that littered the floor. It was all too big and far too detailed for him to contemplate. Taking in quick stuttering breaths, Ted fell back down to the floor, laying on his side and curling his legs to his chest. He concentrated all he had left on slowing down his breath. Soon his chest began to rise more evenly, and then finally settled to a steady rhythm as he slipped back off to sleep.

Ted was eventually woken by the sound of keys rattling in the door. He assumed it was his husband and was startled fully awake once realizing the entire day had slipped away. He sat up with a quickness his body wasn’t prepared for; the aches of sleeping too long on a hard floor working their way out of an aging man's body. He grunted and moaned with the effort, which was the first thing his husband saw as he walked in.

“Yes, yes, it's hard being an old man, isn’t it?” His smile was warm, but the tone was chilled with the disapproval of a late-day nap.

“Oh god. You’re telling me. Have you looked in the mirror lately? I think we need to buy a new one.” Ted chuckled at his humor, but the joke fell flat for his husband. “Why do I feel like I’m 70?”

“Well around 25 or 30, you jumped a few decades. I, on the other hand, haven’t aged since 27.”

Ted’s partner gave him a quick kiss on the forehead and rubbed his hand along Ted’s unshaven beard. They locked eyes for a moment and Ted felt a trickle of worry - for what he wasn't sure - as his husband's brows contracted and the question of how Ted ended up on the floor hung in the air. Ted wasn’t ready to answer. But instead, his face relaxed and he brought up the imminent birthday of Ted’s close friend.

“I was just thinking about her today.” Ted recalled.

“Oh yeah, what about?”

“I’m not sure. I was staring up at the ceiling... and then… I can't remember. I must have fallen asleep. It feels like it all turned into a bad dream.” Ted had a gnawing suspicion it wasn’t a dream at all.

“Well, sounds like you had a wonderful day,” His husband said in jest, “Hopefully you were able to get something accomplished, other than nearly finishing my hazelnut liqueur?” He set his bags down next to the bottle, and turned to look at Ted with eyebrows raised; questioning.

“No,” Ted scoffed in a laughing manner, “You know how the rain inspires me so.”

His partner harrumphed but said no more. Ted put his dirty coffee mug in the sink and screwed the top of the liqueur bottle back into place.

“Tomorrow though.” He said quietly, perhaps just to himself. Yes, tomorrow will be different, he thought as he placed the bottle back up onto its high shelf in the cabinet. He had a sinking feeling he was looking for something earlier in the day, but couldn’t remember what it was. His mind was muddled from the dream he had earlier. That must have been it. He would get a good night's sleep and be fresh for the morning. Yes, tomorrow was going to be different.