Where's my elf on the shelf? Where's my mind to mind? What if my solace lies in disgrace?

I heard intense yellings from mocking birds. My nose caught smells of roasting coffee beans.

Even so, still, my body was nailed to the bed peacefully.

Then suddenly, I felt burnt.

Something had bitten my cheek. 

I woke myself up. The trunk of sunlight was beating me right on my face. Seeking refuge, I moved on to the edge of my bedframe, paused my brain from adrift, sat on it, and I lit up a cigarette.

I smoked like it was my last butt.

Indeed, it was never my last butt.

There was a weird feeling immersed. It felt like I just come out from a coffin, or trapped in a confined space, or held in a box. The word claustrophobia crossed my mind for several times.

I coughed. I did not finish the rolled nicotine. It tasted like depression.

I rose up, and I stretched up my tight muscles. Then I went to the window. I looked outside randomly for any strange thing on the street, but, there was nothing oblivious that could capture my wild imagination.

Then, I realized. I did it for almost everyday. It was routine behaviour. It was like I am waiting for something to take control, to devastate, to break, to dictate. Perhaps it became some kind of a ritual -- we do something on regular basis for the rest of our life without having an apparent purpose for doing it.

Maybe I was scared of the unknown. Well, fear makes people either smarter, or dumber.

My heart insisted that I was the first option.

"It's Thursday, Thursday's people," I murmured as I drew myself back to the bed.

Indeed, it was the last time I wished I ever said that.

I hummed a song by Padi. Then I stopped at its bridge. I closed my eyes and let loose my rusted intellectual faculty from unnecessary thoughts.

My heart was full and heavy. I whiled away the time by faking the recovery, by lies, by hopes, by prayers, but the truth was, in every breathe I took, I went deeper and deeper in painful memories.

I pulled the blanket and I dived in it. Only God knew how much love had been wasted. The weight of my words, her words, his words, our words, their words, were left unlifted in my head.

I felt truly ugly and stink. And abandoned. I felt like unattended washroom.

I felt useless.

The blue smokes from the unfinished cigarette in the ashtray, curled and lingered around in my room, and they slowly subsided, along with the yells of mocking birds, and with a bottle grasped in my left hand, it seemed a perfect way to end a miserable day, if I ever had one more shot, to kick in all over again.