the clock is ticking

he feels the time fading away like his memories as he drinks another.

the burning down his throat the closest he's come to feeling in months
but even that fades to a dull nothingness that he's associated as normal.

on sunny days he doesn't feel the warmth,
when it rains he doesn't feel the downpour,
every day the same, each hour set to a strict routine all ending the same way,

another bottle down but always prepared pulling the next from the drawer
cracking the top before he knows it he's tipping it back trying to get to the bottom as if the key to happiness was attached to it

but that happiness never comes, it's fleeting touches are mere flitters of an existence before the darkness had touched him

all these bottles he uses to try to get to that key at the bottom just add up, collecting silently to the point seeing them just pushes him to forget in the only way he knows how,

another bottle,

until finally he runs out, he throws the last empty bottle with the rest, grabs his keys and drives to feed his corrupted sense of bliss

halfway there before he realizes, it lights are shining on him as he sits paralyzed like a deer in headlights, he doesn't feel the impact but more so watches the lights flash and disappear, the sounds of shattering glass and airbags nothing more than an excited gust of wind rippling through his body

the sirens disrupting the silence he was content to accept, he looks around seeing the carnage around him and can't even feel a sense of remorse, he drifts off, feeling the shaking of the paramedics who know there's nothing they can do, the sirens fade, the lights dim, and everything goes silent.