Vulgar | Reverie

The reverie was vulgar because it was honest. No filters. No audience. Just the raw, unvarnished rot of being alive. And Marco couldn’t look away.

Marco watched them pick their noses, pick their scabs, pick their fights. He watched a man in 3D clip his toenails on the kitchen counter. He watched a teenager in 5F practice smiling in the mirror for forty-five minutes—each smile more terrified than the last. vulgar reverie

By week two, he had a roster. 4B was Denise. She fake-laughed on the phone with her mother, then spent hours searching “how to know if you’re depressed” on a glowing laptop. 2A was the retired cop who drank gin from a coffee mug and talked to his dead wife’s urn. 1C was the newlywed who only stopped screaming at his wife when he started crying, and only stopped crying when he started screaming again. The reverie was vulgar because it was honest

The vulgar reverie had begun.

Marco’s throat closed. He lowered the telescope. For the first time, he looked at his own reflection in the dark window of his apartment. He hadn’t shaved in days. His shirt had a coffee stain shaped like a lung. His own eyes were hollow and wet. Just the raw, unvarnished rot of being alive