The man despises his life, though he cannot put it into words. Thoughts manifest in vague uncertain images that scratch at his mind and pull at his innards. But he is content. This is what contentment is, isn’t it? There is nothing wrong with his life. He is happy. He awakes at 4:98 on the dot (though he knows not what these numbers mean) and grabs his shaft before leaving his room. He lives in grandeur, dirt floor and crumbled stone characterizing his castle. The smell is pungent, a depression in the floor made for excrement and piss that goes uncovered. He is to be grateful for his living arrangements. Nowhere else is his privilege shown than through the uniqueness of his circumstances. Nobody else works as few hours as him and has quarters that are quite as opulent as his. Appreciation is shown by kissing the overseer’s foot.

  The world is all one color: red. Yesterday it was white but according to the weather forecast it is to be red for the remaining 12 days in the week. He is slightly confused since he was under the impression that it was to be white for the last 3 days of the week starting today. He is wrong. The overseer tells him as such. So he is wrong. The sky. The grass. The clouds, his means of toiling the ground. It is all red. It always was and always will be. As he steps out into the world, sun already shining down on him, he is able to make out the figures of his neighbors amidst the fading light. They are 3 and 4 today. Yesterday they were + and =. But they always were 3 and 4. He knows this. He curses himself internally for thinking otherwise. The vague sense of pain inside his breast ceases once he comes to this conclusion, and he is calmed in knowing he is ultimately correct. 3 and 4 live in very similar conditions to him. So similar in fact, that he is unable to discern the difference. At the direction of the overseer, they each walk into each other’s homes (the man into 3’s, 4 into the man’s, and 3 into 4’s), and remain there for a certain amount of time before switching again. The floor is the same. The insects are the same. The holes are the same. They are all the same. But they aren’t. When he returns to his room, the one that is truly his, he is pleased to know that nobody else lives quite as luxuriously as him. It is only through his many years of hard work that he has accrued the privilege of living even better than the overseer.

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  The day is over quickly today. He farms the cobble and plants his crops atop the roof. The day lasts for several months, comparatively quick by the standards of the overseer. He catches a glimpse of the overseer’s face and the surprise is likely an indication of how fast he has completed his work today. The man is pleased at this. For his reward, he is to follow the overseer into his own home to be treated to feast and drink. A piece of bread is laid out for him on a table of granite (which like everything else is red). The overseer’s colleagues appear to be present, their plates filled to the brim with meat and game hunted from the neighboring forest. So he is grateful to have even more food than the overseer. The bread, he is reassured, is much more than what everyone else has to eat, so much more. They laugh as they tell him this, and he joins them in concert. They seem to be observing him, watching him, though he cannot fathom why. One man dressed in frills and silk pulls out a piece of paper and motions for him to do the same. He is confused. There is no paper. At his confusion, the dressed man explains that yes, there is in fact one, and yes, everyone can see it so why can’t he? At this, the man understands, though his head hurts very slightly. It was evident from the beginning–he just somehow forgot that it was in his hand.

  When dinner is finished, the man retires to his mansion satisfied. As he drifts to sleep, content, a wave of emotion, something foreign, assaults him and demands his attention. His chest begins to throb and though he is confused at himself, he begins to scream guttural screams, ones he thinks he hears nightly but is all in his imagination. He pulls at his hair and scratches at his skin until it tears off. He feels weird though there is no reason to feel this way. He feels as if he is missing something, something innate and profound that he once had, but this is surely not the case. It is nothing. It always was. The shouts cease and the man drifts to sleep amidst the surrounding screams and blood that seeps through his wounds into the dirt below.

  Tomorrow, the day starts anew. Everything is blue.