The Worst Day Of The Rest Of Your Life
Dawn seeped into the bedroom through the gaps in the curtains. Silently the light intensified until it woke Robin. He opened a pair of bleary eyes and looked at the ceiling. Several thoughts all tried to occur to him at once. It was as if they had been queueing up for consciousness, but when the shop finally opened for business they weren’t willing to wait their turn. The thoughts in no particular order were: that his eyeballs hurt, that his wife wasn’t sleeping beside him and that this was probably the best he could expect to feel all day, which unfortunately for Robin was starting from quite a low base.
He looked over at the empty half of the bed and scolded himself for experiencing the briefest moment of surprise that Nicola wasn’t still in bed. It had been weeks since she had left him and yet every morning he still half expected her to be there.
It took a great deal of willpower, but Robin successfully pulled back the duvet and clambered out of bed. He rooted around on the floor for some underpants and two socks. Not a pair, just two socks. He opened the curtains and stood staring out at the world. The world stared back.
A few minutes later, he was dressed and in the kitchen. His clothes were smart, if a bit wrinkled. A bowl of breakfast cereal lay on the table as he stood at the refrigerator with a milk bottle in each…
