Philip wonders why Rachel has not come by to pick up her pet cat, Skippy. He feels a combination of exhaustion and boredom.

Philip walks into the kitchen and feels compelled, by something fidget-y and caffeinated inside of him, to ram his head into the fridge repeatedly at a speed of 12.76 m/s. Philip resists this urge and, instead, fills a mug with lukewarm coffee.

He chews, and spits into the mug, four 10 mg tablets of Oxycontin, four 5 mg tablets of Xanax and six 15 mg tablets of Adderall, stirring the mixture with a chopstick.

Philip stares into the murky cocktail, stares into the alchemy of a boring life, the result of frantic hands catching up with a passive aggressive suicidality that doesn’t realize it’s only half serious.

He drinks the cocktail in 29.1 seconds, goes back into the living room.

Skippy is clawing feebly at Philip’s copy of Satre’s Nausea, as if wanting to read it. Philip smiles and lays down.

He thinks time will stop if he takes the batteries out of every clock in the house.