Discarded Wings
Prologue
I remember the smell first. That sour antiseptic stench that no amount of air freshener can truly hide. It creeps into my nostrils and lingers, the same way my past tends to cling to every idle thought like a stubborn stain. A nurse with tired eyes hands me a plastic bag of my belongings—wallet, keys, phone, pill bottles—her gentle smile no more than a professional courtesy. The buzzing fluorescents overhead remind me of a beehive: all that frantic activity, all those tasks, while I stand apart like a drone without a purpose.
Thirty-two years old, 160 pounds soaking wet, and I've just been cleared from the psyche ward after another breakdown. The word "breakdown" always bothers me; it makes it sound like I'm a machine that's just malfunctioned. But I'm not a machine. I can't swap out the broken parts so easily. Sometimes my head decides it's had enough, and everything goes fuzzy around the edges. Sometimes my body picks that moment to have a little seizure—petit mal, they call it—like my brain just short-circuits for a second. Yet here I am, stuck in a mental ward for "burnout."
But I'm free, at least on paper. I can shuffle back to my life, my job at the warehouse—if you can call that living. I go, I fill and scan boxes, I clock out, I go home. Then I disappear for the rest of the day into my gaming desktop, watching youtube videos, writing stories, conquering the galaxy in Stellaris, and ignoring the rest of the world. It's easier that way. Out there, in the real world, my epilepsy might flare up at random. It's mostly petit mal seizures, little blank spaces in my day, but they terrify me more than I'd ever admit aloud, especially behind the wheel. Worse, I've had a few big ones in my youth—grand mal—though rarely. My doctor said cannabis would help and it does, somewhat, but that's just another reason I'd rather stay inside, safe, and alone.
It's all legal now that MBI went global, though, in the minds of some, it still makes me a "druggy." But you know, fuck those people.
I fumble with my keys as I leave, that anxious churning in my gut making my fingers tremble worse than usual. My ring of keys has more dead keys than working ones—old locks from apartments I barely remember, duplicates I never threw away. Typical, right? My life is built on things I can't let go of. I push out through the glass doors, the motion sensor flicking the automatic exit open with a low hiss. The swirling winter air outside wraps itself around me like a cold, unasked-for hug. Instantly, my whole body recoils; I'm too hypersensitive to cold. I want to rush to my car as quickly as I can, crank the thermostat at home to eighty again, and hide until my bones thaw. I cinched my jacket tight, wishing the night wasn't so chilly. My bones felt like they might shatter from the cold if I so much as tripped. When you're hypersensitive to low temperatures like I am, autumn winds turn into knives, slicing through even the heaviest of clothes.
I pass the visitor's lot where families wait for their loved ones, hugging them in the crisp afternoon light. The last time my family was here was… well, never. They're toxic, and I'm not sure how else to deal with them but with distance. So we drifted.
I see my car at the far corner, the paint flaking like a dried-up scab. It's not much—a beige beater that barely gets me to my warehouse job and back, plus the occasional stop for groceries or medication. My breath puffs in front of me like a phantom, and my eyes sting from the dryness of the heated ward mixing with the sudden chill. I sighed, leaning against my car door for a moment.
"Here we go again," I mumbled, fidgeting with the loose seam of my jacket. My keys jingled like a broken wind chime. The quiet ring of metal brought back memories of Theo—how I'd jingle my keys or a bag of treats to see if he'd perk up. It always worked, perhaps a little too well. My chest constricted. I felt a swirl of sadness and nostalgia building behind my eyes, but forced it down. No tears now. Not out here, in the open, where anyone could see.
Not that it mattered. No one was really watching. Another pang of isolation.
When I finally sink into the driver's seat, it's like exhaling the rest of the day's tension.
The engine sputters awake with a cough that almost mirrors my own mental state. I sit there, gripping the wheel until my knuckles turn white, going through the usual routine: check the medication in the console, confirm I have my ID and phone, do a quick seizure trigger self-check. My stomach growls, but I know better than to bother with solid food right now—my anxiety's too wound up. Milk. It'll be milk again when I get home. My body might be malnourished, but at least I won't be nauseated.
And no, I'm not bulimic, but I struggle to get even one meal down a day. If I overeat, my stomach tends to reject it rather violently against my will. Doctors don't know what's wrong with me aside from mild gastritis. I've searched for an answer to this problem for years, had tubes crammed down my throat while sedated, and it's always led to a dead end.
I glanced at my reflection in the rearview mirror. Head was clean shaved, eyes still bruised with the lingering shadows of insomnia, worry lines etched across a too-pale face. Great. The hospital bracelet was gone, but I still looked like a fragile mess. And I couldn't help but let my mind wander: For all my efforts, for all the times I've tried to do the right thing, I'm still… alone.
Bullying, an abusive upbringing, mental health issues, epilepsy—some days it feels like the universe handed me every negative draw from the deck. Other days, I have hope… or at least the smallest flicker of it. Enough to try again. Enough to keep waking up, heading to a warehouse job where I fade into the background. Enough to return to my apartment that's too warm for any normal person and lose myself in Stellaris sessions, forging a grand space empire that doesn't exist except behind a glowing screen.
As I guide the car onto the main street, my mind drifts. It's easier to talk to people on Discord or Facebook, behind typed words and emojis, than to risk stumbling over my own awkwardness in person. I'm used to the judgments. I know I don't look like the well-built hero type that society fawns over, and I'm pretty sure my anxiety screams from the moment people see my trembling hands.
Still, for all my social ineptitude, I keep a little flicker of hope alive. At thirty-two, I'm sick of hearing "It'll happen when it happens." I keep telling myself I'm done wanting someone to warm my hands, but it's a lie. I'm an incel, sure, if you want to box me into that category. But it's not about the sex, not for me, anyway. It's about… not being alone. I want love, not some casual fling. If I wanted just sex I would have shilled out to a prostitute long ago. I suppose that's the case for a lot of us who adopt or are given that label. And while there's a subculture out there that thrives on bitterness and blame, I don't want anything to do with it. A few minutes of scrolling in their forums is enough to confirm it's not a place to find solace, only deeper resentment. I've got enough demons whispering in my head; I don't need a choir. I'm the type who ends up hurting myself, not anyone else. Just thinking about it, my throat tightens, and I have to force myself to relax again.
My head still throbs from the ward's humming lights. Maybe I'll turn up the heat when I get home—somewhere around eighty, the sweet spot. Let the oppressive warmth wash over me until my bones stop rattling from the cold. Maybe after that, I'll scroll through my social feeds, see what the world is up to and quickly realize I want no part in it. And then, eventually, when I summon the will, I'll head to bed. Alone.
It's hard to imagine anything changing at this point. I've lost the people who said they'd support me, lost the ones who used to matter, and I even lost my pet rabbit, Theo. That silly little fluffball was the only one I could hold without fear of being judged. He was my best friend for seven years. Now it's just me and it's been that way for two years. I've been holding in my grief over it for far too long and that's what got me here at the hospital in the first place. But there's an emptiness in my chest that aches for something—or someone—to share my life with. Someone who doesn't mind the anxious stutters, the mild seizures, the unsteady footsteps of a guy who's still trying to find his place. Someone who actually sees me, all my cracks and scars, and thinks I'm worth the trouble. But who am I kidding?
I pull into my apartment's worn-out parking lot. The building looks the same as always, bland walls, chipped paint, and neon vacancy sign flickering in the window. The engine cuts off with a final, painful rattle. For a moment, a fleeting second, I wonder if something—or someone—is waiting for me in my cramped, stuffy room, ready to thaw the perpetual chill I feel. I shake my head at the fantasy and sigh. The only truth I know right now is that I'm here, existing… but not really living. Maybe that's about to change. Maybe not. I'm too tired to guess.
But a subtle spark in the back of my head—an intuition—tells me that something is shifting in the universe. Maybe it's just leftover meds playing tricks on me, but I cling to that feeling for dear life as I step out of my car. The night air feels more alive than usual, as if it's laced with possibilities I can't name yet. And in my heart, I dare to hope that my path is about to cross with someone who can understand what it's like to be discarded… someone who might be just as lonely as me.