Life sucks, doesn’t it?

Life sucks and then you die. Everybody had been saying that since middle school, and it took him until the age of 25 to realize the reality of it.

Life sucks and then you die.

The rain had gotten heavier since he had begun walking home. Fitting, he supposed, given the circumstances. If it had been sunny it might have actually hurt more.

He set a goal for himself that day to not think about Marissa on his way to and from work. It’s a total of one hour out of the day he had vowed to think about something else, and he figured it was an attainable goal.

He was wrong.

The moment he stepped out of his office building came a wave of floral scents cascading from a nearby vendor. He immediately thought of her perfume, then he thought about her hair, then he thought about the weekend they spent in Paris, and now he was thinking about the misery of being alone.

Yeah, life sucks and then you die, alright.

He didn’t think he’d ever experienced a pain as intense as he did the night his ex-girlfriend’s affair was revealed. All it took was finding a flannel on their couch that wasn’t his, and then the torturous heart-stabbing began.

“You’re better off without her,” his friends would say. “You deserve to be valued.”

Yeah. He did. Why was it so hard to get over the bitch that had hurt him, though?

He had been in his own head, battling with the demons that wouldn’t end their mischief when a hard blow struck his shoulder. Looking up, he saw an angry man barreling past him on the street.

“Watch it, asshole,” the man growled.

Marcus wanted to scream at him. After all, he had simply been minding his business when the jackass ran into HIM, but he couldn’t form the words. Really, he had NEVER been able to form the words when the time came for it.

He had escaped his head for a moment, though, and when he looked down at his shoes he noticed a small white paper stuck to his right sole. Figuring it was just trash, he reached down and ripped it away.

The paper was no bigger than what can be found in a fortune cookie, and all that was on it was a phone number and two words scribbled lightly.

“Call me.”

***

He normally would have never called the number, but curiosity took the best of him. After all, he had never been lonelier, so what harm could come from talking to a stranger?

Expecting to be met with a sultry voice looking for a man who wasn’t him, he was taken back when the raspy woman on the other line greeted him by name.

“How do you know my name?” He asked.

“I don’t have time for this,” the woman grumbled back. “Marissa came in yesterday, and her presence gave me a frightening vision. It involves you, and I intend to sop it if I can.”

Marcus rolled his eyes. Marissa had started going to a fortune teller a few months before their relationship’s death, and he supposed this woman was now going to try and milk him for what he was worth as well.

“I know you hate him, and I know you hate her, but you don’t have to do it,” she continued. “You’re a good man, Marcus. Don’t let darkness take you over.”

Marcus furrowed his brow. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ll have a nightmare tonight. You’ll wake up angry tomorrow. Leave the house. Don’t dwell in your pain; get out. You’ve already spent too much time in your head. Any more and you’ll wind up doing something terrible.”

“What do you mean…”

“I’ve got to go,” the woman hurried. “Call me tomorrow if you need.”

An abrupt click, and the call ended.

Marcus looked down at his calloused hands that held his phone. Those hands had never hurt so much as a fly, but he wondered dismally what they were fully capable of.