“Monkeys make horrible spouses.”
The words hammered around in his head, shaking loose cobwebs of past memories and other thoughts he’d hidden away or drowned out with a stady diet of scotch and soda.
“Monkeys…”
Shut up!
He had to get up, get out of this funk. Do something.
I need a drink.
He rose to a clatter of cans and bottles, his latest conquests, and stumbled unsteadily toward the kitchen.
”...make…”
He knew it was there, just to the left. It was always there. A constant reminder, taunting him of what was, could have been and is.
”...horrible…”
He pushed past it, lurching into the kitchen, a hulking shadow, feet unsteady, mind twice so.
Shakily, he reached for the fridge, but in his stupor misjudged the distance, stumbling forward in a rush, jerking open the icebox door.
Off balance he plopped face-first into the stained, cool linoleum kitchen floor.
”...spouses.”
Light ebbing out from the fridge illuminated the framed newspaper clipping he’d desperately been avoiding.
“Hero,” it read.