WWR: Seasonal Depression

He wakes up in a nondescript hotel room, the kind you'll find, cheap, near any major interstate. He doesn't know where he is. The last thing he remembers is leaving work Friday afternoon, ready to unwind with some laps at the pool.

Bruises bracelet his wrists; there are tears in his jeans. His wallet, with its twenty dollars, is still in his pocket, along with a jingling array of change. His face, in the mirror, shows weeks worth of beard growth.

Taking a breath, he opens the hotel door. The sun spills pale and bright over the trees, the hoods of cars. The air is full of the odor of fall, crisp air, moldering leaves, woodsmoke. His skin prickles with gooseflesh and something sour and hot stirs in his stomach.

There's a newspaper rack just down the way. He buys one. The date is September 23.

That sour-hot feeling crawls up the back of his throat.

He's lost three months.



Where did they go? 

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