Wednesday
Phil woke up, washed, dressed, went downstairs, ate his breakfast under his mother’s concerned gaze. He didn’t say a word. He sat in the lounge, stared at the TV screen, didn’t see the pictures of chaos, didn’t hear the newsreaders litany of terrible happenings around the globe. All those others dying, yet their deaths didn’t mean anything to him, he hadn’t known them for years, hadn’t played with them, argued with them, scrapped with them, they were nothing.
Al had been his best friend, had been his best friend.
“Alrait Phil?”
Clare’s thin, pallid voice broke through his shell and he looked across at her where she was curled up into a ball on the sofa.
“No.” He replied bleakly.
She nodded and they sat together in the lounge, each wrapped in their own little world of pain.
His phone pinged and vibrated, friends asking after him, the doorbell rang many times. His mothers voice, low and concerned thanking each one for coming round but not allowing any of them into the lounge where her two children had retreated from the world into their personal limbos.
The TV droned on, cartoons bounced across the screen in primary coloured chaos, soaps paraded their hyper unreality and the news was grim. But Al’s death only made the local news, a short piece finishing with a senior police officer appealing for teenagers to keep out of building sites. It was the only thing that got a response from Phil.
“That’s shite. Al killed hisself.” He muttered very quietly.
Even his Dad made an effort to treat him kindly in the evening, but what words could he offer his son? He had never seen a friend die, let alone commit suicide. He asked if Phil needed anything, even a drink.
Phil had looked up at the offer, then remembered Al’s words of only two days before and shook his head, getting wasted was not the answer, if there even was an answer.
That night he took the pill he was offered and lay down on his bed, accepting the synthetic sleep substitute.