Bottle

John's eyes creaked open and he didn't know if it was tomorrow or the day after. There is something about those two kinds of sleep that feel exactly the same. He didn't recognize this wall, not from this angle. It was not his bedroom, it was the dining room, at least where he kept the dining table, and his drool stuck him to it. There was tack on him, tack on his face, tack on his mouth, tack on the tips of his fingers. Around him was half-crumpled foil, congealing grease, mayonnaise or some such sauce dried on his arm hair.

He sat upright, it was a chore. He looked at this simple disaster and decided it could be worse. He started to stand but a sharp pain in his foot sat him back down. Blood, glass. Small shards imbedded in the tough skin of his right foot, the rusty liquid coating them. He saw the dent in the wall, the cracking paint, the faint streaks of dark amber trailing to the remains of the bottle underneath. It wasn't difficult to put it all together.

Both feet filled with glass, John kneed his way to the tweezers in the bathroom. He sat on the toilet and plucked them out one by one, dropping them in the bowl beneath, giving little thought as to whether or not glass could or should be flushed. When he was done he swung his feet over to the tub, lightly massaging them with soap and warm water, letting the tub go pink. The wounds weren't bleeding, but there was a lot of blood going down. John had no proper bandages, only ones with cartoon characters, and not enough. He made do.

He got the dustpan and returned to the site. He got back on his knees and swept. Glass was everywhere, even in places he was sure it couldn't reach. Were all glass bottles this fragile, or did this one just particularly want to break? John had always wanted to finish a drink and hurl the bottle at the wall or the floor. It was a romantic idea he played over and over, never finding quite the right time to act it out. Now here he was, and he couldn't remember a damn thing.

The pan filled up with glass. His knees hurt. Hiding under a dining chair were a few larger pieces held together by some remains of the label. John picked it up and read the letters: REDEMPTION.