Well, ain’t this some shit, he thought.

He lay on the floor in his tiny apartment, staring up at the ceiling. A few minutes ago, he felt a sharp pain in his chest and, as he stood up to get to his phone, the air left his lungs and he pitched forward. Somehow, he had the prescene of mind to flip himself around as he he was going down, so here he was, looking at the ceiling fan spin lazily.

Hw wondered, as he lay there, if anyone heard him. The downstairs neighbor wouldn’t be home for a while yet, and eventually someone would have to know he wasn’t picking up his phone or answering his door. As his breath came more and more ragged, he lamented not working out some kind of system with others in case something happened to him. How long would it take for someone to come by? He panicked briefly. Why does it end here, like this?