Veneered top, with the type of consutrction you see in home furnishing

catalogs,

A lunch tray maybe - a place to rest a meal.



Alan sat half-off the edge of the green-coushined futon couch. Cheap pinewood creaked beneath his every movement. A stressed, tightened right hand caressed the bridge of his nose with a V shape of a thumb and index

finger.



Internally - "Not today.... they want me to start, but not today. Give me one more day and I swear I'll come back tomorrow and start my day. But not now, don't make me start now. I need a new beginning... not some suprise

in the middle of the day."



Plastic formica door shut on it's metal hinges as the couch creaked. Checkerboard table sitting there in the middle of the room awkwardly. Like someone was going to play a game but then hanged their mind. Someone forgot to put it away. There was no order to the squares of sixty four in this place. Haphazardly Alan swung out a foot at it. The couch momentarily ceased it's creaking as the table unexpectadly tipped forward, folded itself up and the horizontal plane of the wooden checkerboard struck the beige carpeted concrete floor.



The cacophony surely would draw another visitor. Alan shifted backwards on the couch, sitting with straight back against the uncomfortableness of the futon's frugalness. Itched an imaginary itch ... wet his lips with his dry tongue. Rubbed the temples of his head in an effort to stop the impending surge of pain.



No one came.



A glance to the left of the futon on which he was sitting. Wooden cabinet - institutionally friendly while still trying to make a convincing gesture you're at home. A wretched parody of it's self - so out of place in the environment and trying so hard to fit in. All the furniture in the room shared the same Ikea-new quality. The futon's cushion brightly colored and relatively unworn. The carpet vacuumed clean, wooden cabinet unscratched and still shining from it's veneer finish. White blinds, #473 from Scotch Industrial supply, dusted but barely keeping out any sunlight.



Checkerboard, with no checkers in sight. Chess maybe, but no pawns to be found either. No form, no fit, no functionality except to make you believe. Believe the illusion of an environment used and loved.



A longer creak.



Alan squint's at the new rays cutting through the blinds and shining into his eyes. A surge of pain returns to his temples. Without navigation of a path, a runner's sneaker stomps forward deliberately. Left sneaker follows a bit less authoritatively and the right seeks ground again.



Not the unforgiving push of concrete under the right shoe this time, but a smoother, hollower sound as Alan's foot smashes down onto the third row.