The alarm went off like a polite cough.
Ash opened his eyes to the ceiling's hairline crack running from the light fixture to the wall, an old vein that never quite decided to split. The room smelled faintly of detergent that failed to beat the mildew, of coffee he hadn't brewed yesterday, and of rain somewhere beyond the glass.
He lay still and listened to the clock. It did not tick so much as tap, like a knuckle on a door no one meant to open. After ten taps he got up, because the blanket had learned his shape too well.
The floor was cool. He crossed to the sink, rinsed a glass, and drank from the faucet until the water warmed and tasted like the building. A half-eaten container of noodles sat beside the stove, its lid bowed inward. He thought of throwing it away and decided he didn't have the authority.
The mirror above the bathroom tap was the kind that remembered every fingerprint. His face looked like it belonged to a bystander in a crowd shot, fine for a second of screen time, never for a close-up. He ran a hand across his jaw and felt stubble that wasn't worth naming. There was a small birthmark beneath his left eye that he used to believe meant something. Today it was only geography.
Shower. Shirt. The second-best tie, because the best one knew he was lying.
He knotted it too tight, then loosened it until he could swallow without hearing the fabric complain. The jacket smelled of stale train air and the memory of a past interview, another waiting room, another dying plant in another corner.
He made toast and forgot the butter. The toast didn't mind. It cooled on the plate while he checked the time. He rehearsed the answer to the question about greatest strengths and realized he had said it wrong.
"I'm dependable at not causing problems."
He tried it in a confident tone. It sounded like something a man applying to be furniture might say.
Outside the window the sky had settled on a color between old paper and bruise. Condensation beaded on the glass and ran down in hesitant paths, doubling the distant buildings into a tired skyline and its reflection. Somewhere, a siren tested itself, uncertain of an emergency.
His phone buzzed with a calendar reminder written too formally for the job it belonged to. He read it, pocketed it again, as if the gesture might change what waited. The interview was at one. It took thirty minutes to get there if the train didn't pause between stations the way it liked to. He planned for forty-five, because the world preferred to arrive late to him.
Before leaving, he picked up the printed résumé from the table. It was thin in the hand. The paper curled slightly at the corners, which felt honest. Under Skills he had written a list of things that made him sound employable when read quickly. When read slowly they became the confession of a man explaining how he had tried.
He checked the mirror again. The light in the bathroom was the color of offices. He pushed his hair into place, and it returned to where it started, polite in its refusal.
"This is what it looks like when time forgets someone," he thought, not loudly, only to test the idea. The mirror offered no argument. The fingerprints remained.
He locked the door, tested the handle twice, and stepped into a hallway that smelled faintly of other people's dinners and the detergent brand everyone pretended to prefer. The elevator took its time finding his floor. When it opened, a man in a delivery uniform nodded without seeing him. They shared the space without evidence of it.
In the lobby, the security guard was watching a crime show with the volume low. Actors in uniforms moved their mouths as if speaking for him. Ash passed by, and the guard lifted a hand in a small gesture that could have meant greeting or habit. Ash returned it with equal ambiguity.
The front door stuck, as always. He leaned his shoulder into it, and the city's breath met him, cool and damp, carrying the promise of rain that could not decide whether to arrive. He stepped out, and the door sealed itself behind him with the quiet sound of something relieved to be rid of him.