The Last Day
Melan laid on the floor of his apartment bedroom, taking in the brownish cream-colored walls. He had been living there for five years and had just noticed that the paint was chipping near the ceiling. It gave him the feeling, watching the paint flakes wisp down in spirals against the breeze from the open window, that his skin was coming off in peels, and he began to scratch his messy face. His beard began to itch and dig into his face, each hair like a small metal wire, and he began to imagine what it would feel like to remove the flesh from his head like a mask and wash off all the dirt under his skin in the shower. But the shower didn’t work anymore, and he was beginning to feel nauseous from this thought and from hunger. He stood up to grab a cigarette.