“You could just check the clock you twit.” He said as the water continued to pound. “You could just look at your phone… oh wait, no, the clock is busted again… but what about the phone, that’s still an option. Check the damn date…” Charlie was talking to himself, just pointless muttering and nothing more really. But it felt good to talk to someone, his eyes glazed over while he stared at the far wall of his shower, it was long enough that when he sat there he could stretch out his legs. With the showerhead tilted up as far as it was, the water only really pounded the tops of his feet, but his drain was off center, and so at the moment he was sitting on it.

So, with nowhere to go, the water began to rise.

“She was pleasant, wasn’t she?” Charlie asked himself, “I wonder if she’ll work out the math problem?”

He threw back his head, bumped it against the shower wall, and didn’t care, he laughed at his stupid question. “Madness, it’s madness even to ask. Even if she did, even if she calls it, what was I thinking?! She doesn’t have a future! We’re all fucked!” He shouted at the empty walls, his voice drowned out by the falling indoor rain.

Searching for distraction, he began to move his finger over the steamed over glass shower door. In an abstract sort of way he began to mutter while he performed the calculation that killed everything he loved. “Siphoning the energy of the electron migration from position to position on the quanta allows the interception of the subspace position allowing transmission of data instantly without regard for time space dependent distance and provides the energy needed to power both the device and with excess enough to provide for the power needs of an entire state for a year…” The symbols of his trade went over and over on the door, each time he ran out of space, he swiped his hand over the space and did it again when the steam coated the glass again.

He didn’t need the past calculations, they were memorized.

But it was cathartic, it was almost hypnotic.

And it went on and on as the water rose to the point where it began to seep out from the little gaps of the glass and overflow onto the bathroom door.

Charlie barely noticed the change until the hot water stopped flowing and became cold, and it wasn’t the cold that did it.

It was that he had no more space to work because the steam stopped and he couldn’t continue the equation

He blinked down at the water, it was much higher than he realized, past his waist, but it was draining through the little gaps in the less than airtight glass and when he actually looked ‘past’ his mathematics and out into the space beyond, he saw a tiny flood underway.

“Goddamnit!” Charlie swore and reached for the angled chrome brace on the shower wall, he pulled himself up to his feet and yanked the door to the shower open without thinking, unleashing a whooshing noise with the torrent of water that flowed outside faster than the drain in the shower base could take it in.

“Goddamnit!” He cursed again and stepped out into the flood, his feet splashed about with every step and the water bounced off the far wall while more spread out into the kitchen and into the living area. “Come on… why me? I destroy the world and drown the apartment… get it together, Charlie… get- it- together.” He muttered and reached for a towel to dry off with while he reached into the shower and turned off the flow.

The sucking noise of the drain which he often described as a ‘splurt’ came out of the bathroom while he was changing again minutes later.

He looked back at the floor where his other jeans and shirt lay soaked by the water, “Dryer… fine, whatever…”

But when he looked away he caught sight of the bottle of fine red wine waiting on the counter, and he felt his heart skip a beat. Happiness and dread mixed together, ‘Josef at least, he has to know… he’s married, he might be thinking of having children… I don’t want to add his son or daughter to the list of lives I’ve ended, I can’t do that… he’s the only friend I’ve got left. I don’t want to create a life just to destroy it…’

The hours passed for Charlie after that the way minutes passed for ‘normal’ people. The mindless work of mopping up the spilled floodwaters of his long shower was, in a word, tranquil.

Turning his mind off was a luxury and it was more than welcome. The mop swished back and forth while he hummed the melody of his favorite symphony. Beethoven’s 9th, he couldn’t understand the lyrics as they were in German, but… it didn’t matter. He liked the tune and he enjoyed it while he worked.

He was so lost in all that he did that he barely noticed when he picked up a white hefty bag and threw a bunch of garbage in it and took it to the window. He poked his head out, down far below was the usual dumpster, he dropped the bag down where it crashed into the open bin and let out a satisfied sigh.

His feet were a little wet even though he wore shoes, but on the whole, everything seemed genuinely better.

He went to his kitchen and took up the bottle, his eyes scanned the area till he found what he wanted. One of his few little indulgences, a black rectangular cube in the back left corner where the counter stopped. It was raised up to be even with the counter and appeared at first glance to be just a black minifridge.

However it was something else entirely. It was his EuroCave Premiere S. A birthday present to himself, it was indeed a ‘fridge’ in the same way that a Bugatti was ‘a car’. This had no other purpose but the proper and perfect storage of wine. Charlie cracked open the door and an array of empty tan fronts of slide out shelves stared back at him. He opened one, the surface wasn’t flat like a regular shelf, but was instead shaped almost like a shoehorn, in the shape of a bottle with an open oval center outline, each shelf would hold twelve bottles, and for added measure, it had a hydrometer to ensure everything was perfect at all times.

The shelves were as empty as his fridge had been, ‘Did I drink all of it? This used to be full of my favorite wines… this is really all I’ve got?” He looked down at Charlie’s favorite brand, “God… what a waste, I drank it all and don’t even remember it…”

He shrugged, put the bottle into place, then closed the storage unit again leaving that one bottle as the star of the show.

“All of it… all gone… damn- damn- damn-” Charlie muttered and made his way back to the main living area where his bed sat waiting for him. He glanced down at his phone, it still sat on the charger, untouched, face down. ‘Just look, see the date, find out how long it’s really been…’

He crouched down, the solid surface of the phone was solid to the touch, and he slowly stood up straight again. His heart pounded in his chest. ‘Everything is so chaotic… I’m happy, I’m sad, I’m miserable and lost… I called out to gods and got nothing, I flirted with a pretty girl and made dinner plans with my best friend and flooded my own damn apartment… and that’s just what I can remember… just one look, and I’ll…’ He swallowed.

Charlie shot up to a seated position in his bed to the sound of pounding on his door. “Hey Charlie, are you ready to go yet? My wife said dinner is in an hour! You in there?!” Josef’s voice finally reached him, and Charlie cursed.

“Y-Yeah! I’m here… give me a minute! Just… ah… I guess I overslept! Took a nap, you know! My alarm is busted! Sorry Josef! Listen, I’m just going to take a quick shower I’ll be out in fifteen minutes, okay?!” Charlie shouted and flung himself out of bed.

He was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday, ‘Fuck!’ He mentally cursed as he rushed from the bed to the bathroom and turned on the shower.

“Yeah, I figured! That’s why I lied! We’ve got an hour and a half! You’ve gotten predictable again!” Josef shouted with the well known and much loved barrel chested laugh.

Charlie had to smile at that, his quick steps slowed down, and he began to amble along a little slower. “Damnit Josef…!”

“Damnit Charlie!” Josef mocked, “I’ll wait downstairs, don’t take too long or I’ll come drag you out of there even if you’re in your underwear or less!”

“Want her to see why she should have married me, do you?!” Charlie shouted through the door before stepping into the shower.

“Har, har, har. Just hurry up, I’ll wait downstairs!” Josef shouted, and Charlie did as his friend requested, and began to hurry up.

‘Not much time, but it’s enough.’ Charlie said, and doing as his friend requested, he began to hurry up.