MirrorMirror

2 / The Big Chill

Sleep can be refreshing. Invigorating. The dreams we have, whether remembered or not, give our subconscious the chance to play through the issues plaguing us. It doesn't always mean we awaken released from their hold, but our sleeping mind does its best to aid us.

Sleep can also make us feel we've had none. We can wake more tired than we were hours before, at the beginning of the night. Our heads feel stuffy, as if we'd had a negative amount of unconsciousness. Headaches, untouched by painkillers, have us thinking all we need is more of the very thing that caused it.

Cassidy generally enjoyed the former. When he awoke, he had both feet firmly in the latter's camp. After snoozing his alarm, he pulled the quilt over his head and closed his eyes. He knew it wouldn't help, but he could tell himself it might. It didn't, though his head cleared a little. It was enough that, half an hour later, he felt he could get out of bed.

Jack Daniels would step aside for coffee. He might feel more human.

With a yawn, stretch and heavy sigh, he pushed back the quilt and sat up. Usually, his first thought, without getting out of bed, would be to reach for his phone. He'd check the news, notifications (swiping so many away, he'd tell himself he needed to switch them off for the offending apps), scroll through social media until his bladder told him he'd liked enough posts about breakfast and talented dogs. He'd deliberately not charged his phone through the night on this occasion, however. He knew it would be flat by morning, hence his use of an old alarm clock he thought he'd thrown away before finding it when packing to move. He wanted the peace a lack of technology would give.

The automatic injection of social media posts each morning, almost as soon as the eyes opened, was something millions of people across the world did. It was as if some couldn't function if they didn't discover what their friends or family had to say. Others didn't want to miss out on the latest trending celebrity scandal. Still others just needed to get past the game level that had been defeating them. This go would see them do it. Or this go. Or this.

Cassidy was aware he was one of the many. On this morning, he wanted to be one of the few. Enjoy the silence of a quiet house with a, hopefully, quiet mind.

He looked around the room. It was large, with a high ceiling. The floor was natural wood and, he assumed, had been there since the house was built. There were sections that had clearly been replaced, but it was otherwise generally intact. To an extent, the floor was a mirror of the rest of the house. Odd parts had been replaced, such as the boiler and the stair banister. The locks had been changed and the windows were double glazed, updated from the original sash windows.

He'd done well, he thought. To get such a place at the price he'd paid was unusual. The fact it had remained empty for a while helped push the price down to an affordable level.

Well, it was about time he took advantage of it. Another sigh pre-empted his climbing out of bed. He shivered as he pulled on his dressing gown. It was chilly, though the weather was meant to be mild to warm with clear skies. Somebody should have told the house that. He'd have to make sure he installed his smart heating wotsit later so he could voice control it and set up a routine. Cassidy liked the ease a smart house - lights, heating and television remote control - gave him. He didn't see himself as lazy, just on the cutting edge of the technology he was avoiding at the moment.

He glanced at his phone before leaving his bedside and saw the screen was illuminated. The battery icon was red, so low. It just wasn't as low as he'd anticipated. It had been clinging on through the night, handing out charge to the phone's various functions in meagre rations that only just allowed them the power needed to stay alive. Doing so had enabled it to survive until morning so it could be used by its glorious owner, to inform and entertain, as was its purpose. Cassidy's hand was already reaching before he realised and snatched it back.