Animate

     He leans against the small, white porcelain pedestal sink, his palms pressed into the rounded corners. The reflection of his deep, brown eyes staring straight back at him, his hair a mess of dark, straight strands criss-crossed on the top of his head, thick chunks falling at a slant across his forehead, just touching the top of his eyebrows. Thick stubble beginning to form the shadow of a beard along his jaw line and chin and connecting to the dark hairs along his upper lip. He looks closely at every detail, focusing again on his eyes, trying to see something in them, a soul, perhaps, something more the his human self. Perhaps a god. But the more he stares the less he sees of anything, the less soul, the less human. His eyes become only an object of his being. There is color. No, there is not even color, but light. Light reflecting back to his vision what he perceives as color. Nothing real, only reflection, only deception, only the way his brain is wired to see such things as he sees them. “Fuck,” he says, his voice deep, dry, with a slight rasp. He has leaned too long, his back and shoulder blades stiff from holding the pose.
     Breakfast is a dark piece of toast with a thick spread of creamy Jiff over the top. This kitchen is a dim, morning blue. He can see through the thin slits between each closed slat of the forest green blinds over the window above the kitchen sink that it is a sunny summer day. Even without pulling down the string to lift the blinds up, he can tell that there is not one cloud in that bright blue sky. It is eleven o’clock in the morning, but he is still only in his boxer shorts, an old pair with a small hole torn along the seam of the crotch. It is the end of June, but he is still thinking about his final paper for Philosophy in Literature. He ended it all wrong. He should have made the conclusion clearer. It was an A paper, but the end was all wrong. Cliché, even. Typical, at least. He bites into the soft peanut butter and the crunchy toast. Perfectly contrasted complements.