It was dark when Cassidy awoke.

He moved slightly, looking for his phone to check the time and regretting it. Yes, his sofa was comfy, but he was adept at nodding off in positions not conducive to actually being comfortable, if stayed in for any length of time. Sprawled out with his neck bent at an awkward angle was fine if watching television for a while and, if he felt the need, he could move. Sleep, on the other hand, didn't care if your neck was stiffening or your back was straining. It kept the facts secret, hiding them from you until you left its domain.

Then it would sit back and enjoy the pained expressions and grunts of a body in distress.

It was not long after 10 pm. Cass would often still be up an hour for another hour or more. During the week, he rose at 6:30 am for work, but enjoyed a lay in on a weekend. As he'd been asleep for a while, he wasn't tired enough to think about going to bed. Instead of having the television churn nondescript content into the room, he decided to find a film to watch.

He had an extensive collection of movies and shows on a couple of hard drives that were plugged into a small computer attached to his TV. Though he loved going to the cinema, he would regularly build on his collection by downloading the latest blockbusters, then stream them through a media server he'd set up. It meant he could watch them from anywhere, just by using the correct app.

And, in almost 2000 films and twice as many episodes, there was nothing that he fancied. He was fancying science fiction, but had seen everything he might choose. A decent horror film was hard to come by. Comedies could be too cheesy. A thriller? Possibly but... meh.

Wow, he was in a hard to please mood. Was this what solitude did to you? It had been a while since he had been on his own. The sudden change was obviously getting to him more than he'd admit.

Choose something to watch and just enjoy it, for fuck's sake.

Fine. If all else failed, Cassidy would forgo his collection and watch a comedic panel show. There were a great many, and the same faces would often be seen across them all. Sometimes it seemed that's all comedians did nowadays. Leap frog from show to show, cashing the pay cheque while dishing out anecdote after punchline.

Cynical as well as finicky. What a mix?

Panel show it was. One or another was always guaranteed to be on. There were so many channels and streaming services, it was impossible for there not to be. A quick search gave him what he wanted and he settled back again.

Ah. Best just stand up and stretch his back before giving it cause to get worse. And, while he was on his feet, a drink and snack wouldn't go amiss.

Twisting from side to side to free his protesting muscles up, he walked into the kitchen. He could see his reflection in the window and shook his head.

Looking a bit of a mess there, mate.

He'd get back into his groove, whatever that might be now, soon enough, he told himself. He looked rougher than he should have. Dishevelled. He knew it was the result of waking up on a sofa rather than in bed, coupled with pain. By morning, with a shower and change of clothes, he'd look less like a vagrant.

He rinsed his bourbon glass out and filled it with water. Yes, it would have been as easy to get a fresh glass out and just one more still didn't mean there'd be lots of pots to wash, but it was a habit he found hard to break. Again, it drew from his parents. Why make more pots than you needed to? It meant there'd be less when you might really need them, and the three seconds or so it took to wash that glass could be better spent doing something else entirely.

The thought was spoken in his head with his father's voice. Cassidy raised his glass in salute to the man. Some habits were hard to break, even though you knew they didn't really make sense.

For a snack, his options were limited. Crisps or multipack chocolate bars. Neither appealed to him and only illustrated his need to pull himself together. He ate better than that. Such things were lazy food. Calories, not that he really counted them, and sugar. And great taste, but that was secondary. Wasn't it?

Ah. A hedgehog sandwich. That would do nicely. He grabbed a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, buttered some bread, and put them all together. Back in the living room, he unpaused the show, not remembering he'd paused it in the first place, and sat back. And relaxed.

His non-hunger satiated and his funny bone tickled, Cass decided he should go to bed. Tomorrow was, apparently, another day, and it would be a better one than today. If every day was an improvement on the one before, life would be back on track. He'd feel he was living it again instead of merely existing. He didn't like to admit to himself he was doing that and couldn't deny it.

Compartmentalise!

His ability had evidently been compromised. Repairing it required acknowledging its disrepair. He'd done that. The only way was up, baby.

Up the stairs, for a start.

Cassidy's nightly routine hadn't changed for as long as he could remember. A wash (hands, face, pits and bits), brush teeth and urinate. He didn't always need to do the latter, but an empty bladder was a 4 am alarm clock with the batteries removed. He washed his hands, dried them and went through to his bedroom, bringing his t-shirt up and over his head as he walked. The landing was still new to him, so there was a slight risk of him falling down the stairs. Luckily, his sense of direction had always been good. Besides, a straight line across a couple of metres was difficult to mess up.

As he entered his room, his top was just about free of his arms. He slept naked, so everything apart from his jeans went in the wash. Jeans lasted a few or more days thanks to their heavy-duty denim and the fact his daily life wasn't dirty enough to dirty them. In the absence of a laundry basket yet, the floor would suffice. He'd get one tomorrow. That was one task on the list.

Undressing was clumsy and quick. The previous chill was gone and the room, the house, had kept an even temperature since. No, not even. It was definitely cooler. Not cold, though. Like planets orbiting a distant star, it was in the Goldilocks zone.

Just right.

Ignoring the smudge across the top, almost reaching from one side to the other, he looked at himself in the mirror. He looked better than in the kitchen window, thankfully. The reflection downstairs and that now could have been two different people. Or perhaps brothers, one respectable and the other down on his luck. At least the Cassidy he was looking at in his bedroom was the less haggard one.

In bed, he put his phone on charge and asked his smart speaker to turn out the lights. The dark had never bothered him, so he didn't mind the light being abruptly sucked from the room. His extended nap, though, meant sleep eluded him. This was a rare occurrence. Sleep and Cassidy were friends. When it was time, he only had to close his eyes, and he was slipping into its embrace. If ever that wasn't the case, Cass resorted to hypnosis.

There was a time, just before Elise, that he'd seen himself as overweight. His eating habits were not good and his exercise pattern was worse. He had gained weight to the point his normally loose clothes were snugger. It was time to do something about it. With diets requiring a discipline he lacked, he turned to a hypnotherapist a friend had recommended.

Though it was fairly expensive, the weekly sessions worked and he lost 21 pounds quickly, regaining half of them in the time since. He had been given a set of MP3 files, playable on his phone, to listen to that emphasised the work done in the sessions. Being asleep didn't mean the words didn't penetrate into the mind, so listening to them worked twofold – the soothing voice helped him sleep and the content fortified his resolve to not fall back into his old behaviour.

By the time the recording's introduction was over and the countdown to feeling relaxed and sleepy was at half way, Cassidy was, once again, asleep.

In the mirror, lipstick lines began to appear.

https://youtu.be/_e7UYTY96Xs