3.17

His cereal crunched in his mouth, sharp and crisp. It wasn't sogged down by the milk yet, but it was at that perfect mixture of moist and crunch. He bit his lip, so hard he could hear a crunch and he doubled over in pain and cried out. He dropped the bowl on his foot and stared at the just-right cereal layering his toes and the cold milk soaking into the carpet.

He could taste her perfume every time he breathed in. It tasted like one too many flowers in a bouquet. It fit: she looked like one strand too many on a Christmas tree. His hand slid into hers. He gasped at the ice of her fingers, and the perfume stuck to his tongue and the back of his throat. It tasted like a cup of extra sugar in a cake. He didn't care.

He yelled at the sky for an hour or so about all the problems in his life. God could hear him, of that he was sure. Of what he was not convinced: that God cared. He could feel his voice box vibrate with each guttural sob. Soon, his voice was so ragged that his wordless yells became more air than voice. He finally stopped when he couldn't continue, forced to early completion by his inability to make angry noise. Nothing had changed. He felt better.