The pace game was one at which Felix was beginning to get exceedingly good. Back, forth, back, forth – the interior of his apartment was all too familiar to him as he had gone over it several thousand times in the last few days, or so it seemed.

Arrangement
Did the table on the right need a little bit of adjustment – some tweaking as it were? No, it was perfectly well situated in its location. Besides, he had already adjusted it five times since he had started passing it. Or was it six times? What was that on top of the cupboard? Certainly he couldn’t have possibly left something sitting on top of the cupboard that wasn’t supposed to be there, did he? No, that was impossible. It was the top to a soda bottle. It must have been from the bottle of seltzer water he was drinking from earlier. To think of all the time he spent searching for this cap when he hadn’t even bothered to take note of the fact that he had finished the seltzer. Off to the recycling center with it, he thought to himself as he deposited the cap in the bin in the kitchen designated for plastic and glass recycling.

Stopping short a few feet away from the bin, it suddenly dawned on Felix that he really had no clue what was going on. What time was it? What day was it? The neighbor who thoughtfully put out his paper every day had neglected to do so today. What day was it yesterday? Tuesday. Which of course made today into, by necessity, a Wednesday. Third or fourth day of the week, depending on whom it was that you asked regarding the day status. What exactly was happening?

Status Check
Status check. He woke up early, or perhaps late, and proceeded to make some coffee, although it very well might have been a good strong herbal infusion which greatly resembled a coffee beverage. It had been too early, or not early enough in the morning, to be making such distinctions between the various sorts of beverages that one would be able to find in the apartment. No newspaper to read for the day meant one thing that he wouldn’t be able to do to put off doing whatever it was that he was supposed to do to get out of this ridiculous circle of non-accomplishment that he had found himself in.

Music. There must be some musical accompaniment if he was meant to be doing something productive that day. Night. Whichever. What time was it, again? One day he was determined to get to the jeweler and get the battery in his wristwatch repaired so that it could tell the correct time a bit more often than it was doing at the moment. Or maybe he could splurge a little online and find a nice winding watch. That would be an activity to pursue – as if forgetting to wind the watch would cause time to cease going forward. No, it would only stop in the small universe that the watch occupied. It would have been somewhat of a meaningful activity to him, nevertheless.

Felix was strongly tempted to slap himself across the face, as if that was going to be the thing to motivate him to just go ahead and do something already. He nearly gave himself credit for being able to get out of bed at all in the morning but that was just something he used to do when he had been in a state of suicidal depression. Now it would take more than merely being able to arise from a state of slumber to merit some sort of self-award. What would it take these days to get recognition from himself? Freshening that pot of tea in the kitchen might be a good start.

Legal Ease
There was once again the thought, the idea of possibly going to law school. Was this the idea, to go from his undergraduate major in Communication to Law School? It had been a few years since he had been in school at all. At the very least he could possibly meet people, get some fresh acquaintances perhaps. Maybe it would be possible for him to make an actual friend in the three years he would be there. But then the thought of the tuition and his actual interest in pursuing a degree in law – non-existent, that was to say – might impede on the pursuit. It wouldn’t be much of a quest if he had no desire to take on the quest. On top of this was the idea of the end result – being a lawyer of some sort, or someone who taught law perhaps. This too held no appeal for him.

Loneliness had been pervading Felix’s existence these past few weeks. These past few months, even. What happened to the people he thought were so close to him? The people he was sure he could call his friends, who wouldn’t hesitate to give him the honor of such a title? It was his own doing, he decided. After getting out of the world of working people in an involuntary manner, he had isolated himself and stopped calling his friends. No wonder, then, that they stopped trying to call him. No wonder, then, that he hadn’t seen any of his friends in what seemed like an eternity but had only been a short three or four months at most.

What was there to say to anyone? What would possibly motivate anyone to want to have any sort of conversation with him when what would inevitably come from his end of the line would be the same thing every time. “Hey, yeah, it’s me again. What’s new with you? Oh me, yeah, I’ve been sitting around feeling like garbage and not really wanting to go anywhere or do anything.” The sudden need to rush off to get a pie in the oven before it burned would surely turn up, or perhaps the person would hear their distant uncle calling them from the room over. Anything, anything just to avoid the conversation with a person lost in a spiral of self-deprecation. Such a delusional person, who doesn’t realize that they aren’t moving anywhere in life and refuse to do anything about it to change the situation.

Brand New Day
Maybe today was going to be different. Just for a change. Maybe today he was going to do something about it, damn it, because between inaction and action he still had to face the end of his life and what would he have to show for it? Felix imagined a darkly garbed man, a nice suit perhaps, standing at a door with a queue of deceased individuals waiting to see him, each with their sacks heavy of accomplishments from during their life. What was in his? No, he had more of an over-the-shoulder messenger bag for what little he had in life. So he had helped get his friend Sandy through her own break-up, while she helped him get through his. What a laugh – as if that was something to stand around boasting about, as if it would make the headlines of the Times.

Enough! Enough, damn it. He had to do something.

Like pick up the phone, perhaps.

It was ringing.