He pulled a cigarette from his bedside table, lit it and stood up. Taking a long, satisfying drag, he looked across the room at the full-length mirror he had propped haphazardly in the corner. He was a mess. His left eye was puffed up like a balloon and his mouth looked like some prehistoric crustacean had crawled up and died on it.
The rest of his face belied his thirty three years, bearing the wear and tear of a man twice his age, three times even. His body was out of shape and had the scars of far too many fights; the souvenirs of too many smart remarks passed at inopportune moments. Suddenly there was a noise out in the hallway. A phone ringing. A door opening. Followed by bare feet shuffling.
‘Yeah, I’ll see if he’s up,’ a young girl spoke before the bare feet shuffled up to his door. ‘You up?’
‘Coming,’ he limped out into the hallway.
‘It’s the phone …’ the girl’s voice trailed off in horror and a sharp rush of cold air rose up between his legs. Unfortunately, his memory bore many scars of it’s own.