~
Nathan walked to the fridge. He opened the door and moved down his mental list: eggs… yep, right on top - a giant clear container holding about 30; rice… rice… hm… last night's lasagna. "I could eat that I guess," he thought, "nah… I don't feel like taking the time to get it out and microwave it… Man. I'm lazy. Oh, there's the rice. Now the ham." He opened the meat drawer and found a small plastic wrapped square of a previously round cured ham. "Mom's been working on this - guess that's why she suggested I eat it." He took the ham out of the package. It was yellow and firm. "Pfft. Cheese."
As he ambled back to the fridge to renew his search, Nathan wondered, "If I'm too lazy to microwave lasagna why in the world am I making ham fried rice?" His first four reasons didn't feel very motivating: he didn't feel like eating Italian tomato sauce this early in the day; he was hungry and ham fried rice would feel good going down - not so acidic as tomato sauce; he shouldn't start the day with a granola bar; mom suggested it. He really just wanted to bag eating… didn't really want to do anything.
Sis'd come home at lunch. Mom had also suggested this for lunch. Maybe he ought to practice making it before serving it. He'd had enough stupid food mistakes over the last week that this seemed slightly more motivating despite the simplicity of the meal.
Nathan recognized through his late morning grogginess the kind of day he was having. He'd had it before. This was the kind of day where a familiar dark cloud would embrace him like a good companion should. He wouldn't feel like eating - particularly if he had to prepare the food. He wouldn't feel like cleaning up for the day. He wouldn't really feel like doing anything, actually. He'd have dark thoughts - not evil thoughts, just depressing ones.
Understanding what he was feeling Nathan worked to combat it. He'd had this kind of day frequently in the past - fortunately it was less common now. The struggle was the cloud. It constantly whispered despair to him, and obstructed the light shrouding all about him with gloom. In the past Nathan had tried to physically shake the doom mist from him. It clung effortlessly to him like a parasite on a dying host. He'd run from it. It was faster than he was. It was also faster than his car. He'd wrapped it around his fist and beat it against his father's fence. Unfortunately, this was more damaging to both the fence (which gained a fist sized hole) and the fist (which gained a fence sized array of slivers and cuts). The cloud actually gained ground at the fence rally - it dove into his newly opened blood stream like a genie entering a bottle. Then it laughed at him from his insides. It took Nathan a confrontation with his parents about the fence (and a wall) along with several weeks of secret crying to bleed it out of his system.
These lessons weren't lost on Nathan. He no longer fell into the physical foolishness. He did, however, fall into emotional foolishness. He'd been on long midnight walks to the middle of a park and tried to shout the black demon away. He'd subsequently fallen to the ground in moments of great agony as the incorporeal taskmaster shouted back. He'd retreated and escaped reality - usually through fantasy novels and video games, and also through an occasional film. He wasn't much of one for TV. His trips to fictional places were generally very long - usually never ending until the well into the early morning. He would sleep fitfully through much of the day. Often the shadow would be sitting by his side as he awoke cheerfully greeting him an oxymoronically good morning. Nathan missed a good deal of school. In part, this was due to the amount of sleep he was generally missing. The other part had a great deal to do with illness. Nathan had once been relatively healthy. The demon saw fit to change things. Whenever Nathan breathed in, it would breath out - spewing a subtle stressing poison into his lungs. It had the effect of tightening his chest and stomach. The poison fooled Nathan's heart which seemed to never quit ejecting adrenaline - keeping him awake at night (on nights when he wasn't in fantasy land) and making him miserably tired in the days. Nathan's stomach gained a talent for self destructiveness - eating it's self a little more with every problem that came his way.
