When Charlie woke up, it wasn’t with a cold sweat, it wasn’t with his eyes flying wide open, and he didn’t shoot upright as if from a nightmare. He woke up slowly, sprawled out on his bed, with a white blanket strewn about. He groaned, it was still dark. He glanced toward the window, no hint of the hour could be found from the darkness beyond. But one desire did crystalize in his head.

‘I need to get something…’ He said to himself and slowly pushed himself up against the soft mattress, his hands sinking into the foul thing. He groaned again, pain from stiff limbs was steady and throbbing. “I am outta shape…” Charlie mumbled and eased himself over the side of the bed. His computer sat dusty and unused on the end table that sat at the foot of the bed by the wall.

He didn’t bother with a chair, he stood up, fumbling in the dark, he popped it open and entered his PIN number to get into the system. It didn’t take but a moment for him to reach the websites he wanted. “Treadmill… and… new mattress… bedding…. clothing…” He verbally ticked off the list of things he would need as he acquired them.

But when he got to the clothing section and looked down at his own nude body, the girth disgusted him. ‘No. I’ll order clothes that ‘will’ fit. And just to get by, I’ll order two or three that ‘do’ fit.’ His now flabby jowls tensed with determination.

He ordered two pairs of jeans, a belt, three shirts that would fit ‘for the present’ and then eight sets of everything he intended to fit into again one day.

The treadmill and exerbike came last. With his credit card saved, he plugged in the three digit CVV code, six- six- seven- and upgraded the shipping to overnight.

He then closed the laptop, ending the glow of the screen that briefly lit up the area around him, and shrouding the room in darkness again.

For several long moments, Charlie stood there, naked, a little tired but steadily waking up, unsure of whether to go back to bed or go outside or what to do at all. The television he watched on an endless loop beckoned him again. But outside, in a few hours, his friends would be gathering for a run. ‘Assuming the time on the computer is right, which it must be, it’s a little after midnight…’ Charlie’s stomach growled a little, a reminder that he hadn’t eaten at all after the previous day.

Around him, the garbage was still present, though it was more a patchwork carpet of shadowy debris without the light of the day to reveal what it was composed of. Despite his best prior effort, only a part of the room had been cleaned, ‘No more… this may take time, but… what else have I got? I can at least do some every day’ He thought and flicked on a lightswitch.

If he had neighbors to think of, he might have hesitated, but as he didn’t, Charlie went to the bathroom, swept the blue curtain aside and turned on the shower. He reached for the red bucket by the toilet and put it under the water, the sound of water striking plastic echoed over the room and off the shower walls.

He then crouched down beneath the sink and drew out the bleach and dumped some to slosh inside the bucket, then repeated the process again with Pine Sol. The fragrant smell of pine spread easily amidst the steam, and then he went into the kitchen. He paused to yawn, covering his big mouth with a hand before taking out the box of Hefty bags.

“Just do three.” He told himself, and removed the first one before tossing the box onto the counter. The loud crinkle of the bag unwrapping from the rolled up whole was quickly followed by the loud snap as he whipped the bag open and went into the living area like he was preparing for a fight.

He stopped. “No… not this time.” He mumbled, then returned to the kitchen and found a set of thick rubber gloves under the sink.

Now ‘dressed’ for the task, he returned and began to pick up the filth. A pizza box that he pulled out was covered in grease stains, and, to his horror, and almost vomit inducing, it still had a piece of pizza that stuck to it.

Only… it was covered in mold. Foul, black and white ‘fuzz’ coated the entire surface of the slice except for the baked pale crusty wide ends. He was about to shove it into the bag when he thought better of it. Charlie dropped the bag, folded the box several times, grunting with effort until he’d folded it four times. ‘So folding it that eight times just… wasn’t going to happen.’ He thought as he recalled the old record for a piece of paper. He slid the smooth brown box into the bag and it quickly ‘partially’ unfolded, but it was good enough.

More would fit. He crumpled old chicken buckets into balls and watched with revulsion as roaches scrambled away whenever he disturbed the ‘nest’ they made. ‘It’s a wonder there aren’t rats.’ Charlie thought as he continued the steady progress until the first bag was full.

It felt like forever, and dragging the bags over to the door one by one and exposing more of the floor was as exhausting as it was satisfying… but it still felt like quite a bit remained.

‘But… I can see more of that filthy, disgusting floor, and these aren’t as heavy as the last ones.’ The thought sounded worse in his head than he really knew it to be, with three bags against the door, each one half the height of his body, it was a milestone.

The mopping afterward required more vigor than it would have if he’d just cleaned up the first time around. Still, he tried. He ground the mop against the floor to dislodge crust remnants that had dried into place and with almost cruel satisfaction, noted the way the roaches fled from him like he was an angry god.

The white, chemical saturated water splashed back down into the bucket again, and again, and again. Every time he twisted the mop to wring it of filth after another pass over the floor, until the water turned a disgusting shade of ‘dust gray’ with debris ranging from crust or caught up bones to roach feces floating in the midst of it.

The way the bones and fecal matter floated around with bits of stained white crusts reminded Charlie of a movie where a man survived a plane crash. Bodies, debris, and filth around a ruined machine. Hair stood on end with a shudder of disgust that was becoming far too familiar.

Unable to dump bits of bone in the toilet, Charlie set the lip of the bucket on the porcelain rim and holding the red bucket at the base with care, he tilted it forward and then lay one blue gloved hand over the protruding lip of the bucket itself.

The foul waste water went in, while the larger debris did not, and the gurgling water drained down the toilet on its own when the fill grew too high.

The weight of the bucket was difficult at first, awkward and uncomfortable, a strain on his now weak arms. But as he poured it out, it grew easier and easier, until the weight was lifted and there was nothing left but the bones of meals he shouldn’t have eaten in the first place and didn’t remember at all.

He snatched up the bones and crusts in between his fingers, approached the bags, chucked them into one that he’d left open, then tied it tight.

“Progress. Finally… a little progress.” Charlie said and peeled off his gloves before he went to put on some running shorts and meet his friends again.