His legs hurt, he hadn't felt this way in a long time. Every fiber of his being dragged with fatigue. Is this what it was like to be old? Does every move require concious effort? He looked out the window. Rooftops extended in every direction, slanting this way and that. Antennae and chimneys stabbed up at the sky offering man made defiance to the heavens.

He turned to look toward the door. It was out there, somewhere. The perfect story was waiting out in the world. If only he could muster the will to leave his apartment. A prison, the door wasn't locked but he still couldn't leave. Not until...not until what? There was something to wait for wasn't there? He couldn't remember what it was. Something was supposed to happen today. Or was it yesterday? Tommorow?

He stood up and went to the kitchen. Kitchen. The word seemed wasted on the area that consisted of a stove a cupboard and small refridgerator. The cupboards contents was almost as pathetic as the kitchenette, even that word seemed too large, some minute rice, a jar of peanut butter, an unopened jar of pickles and some pop-tarts. He opened the box of pop-tarts, make that pop-tart. One left. He slid it into the side of the dented thrift store toaster that still worked.

While the pastry warmed he remembered his mother's kitchen, a place of warmth and good smells. Sundays, when his father cooked eggs and bacon for breakfast before church. When he was young things had been so much simpler, with parents to tell you what was right and wrong and a priest to tell you what god wanted. They were liars though, all of them. They didn't mean to be but they were just the same. Noone really knew what God wanted, and right and wrong were just decisions that people with power made. But he still remembered the kitchen, where he played on the floor building towers tin cans. Towers of creamed corn and string beans as high as he could reach, building until his mother shooed him or one of his brothers knocked the towers down.

He reached up and touched the scar over his eye. Sugar beets he remembered, smiling, a half inch lower and his depth perception would be zero.

The toaster buzzed in a strangled effort to bounce up. He lifted the lever and took out the hot pop tart. He decided he was tired of waiting. Grabbing his coat, he took the pastry with him.