I should be asleep.  It's almost three in the morning and I'm still awake.  This is nothing new.  I've gotten used to being awake in the wee small hours.  'It's because we have a new baby,' she says...on the edges of my consciousness, waiting for me like a predator waits for its dinner.  So while I'm tossing and turning and tangling in the blankets, my nightmares are getting fat. Word count: 195

"That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version." — Chuck Palahniuk (Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories) Life never...see how they've played out to get you to where you are now.  It's only when you step back and take in the big picture that you can see that there is some kind of method to the metaphorical madness.

Start a book. Start a bottle. Start the car . When I don't know what to do with my hands, I come out here and start the Mustang.  I was six when this pony rolled off the line.  I was still seeing... I haven't even started to come to terms with that. In with the clutch, gear in reverse.  Kill the engine. I've changed.  My life has changed.  The car stays always the same. Word count: 524

[ooc: takes place after this and for the sake of this fic, he switched to beer instead of scotch] [locked from everyone] I'll start with what's broken. What's broken are the promises I made to...unable to stop. I regret breaking a promise that already had fracture lines and fault lines in it. At least when she told me this time, I was sober. Word count: 790 (minus the block quote)

[Continued from here but backdated to 11/10. For writers_muses [47.6] Hope and theatrical_muse  #256 'What do you hope for'] Bobby leaned against the wall across from the bathroom...with this.  He can no longer hear the second hand ticking away, though he knows it hasn't stopped.  Another day has ended and she's another day closer to forty. Keep hoping. Word count: 486