The Basement

Flash Fiction.

You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning.

But you have a tendency, especially lately, to surprise yourself.

It’s damn near four, a couple hours still till sunrise, and Dad is telling you to bust out just one more rep — trying to be encouraging — but a distracting thought has just popped into your head to get in the way of the workout.

That thought: You just kind of know things aren’t going all that well when you’re fighting off incessant insomnia with your…