Everything was dim and blurry, like most mornings before she found her glasses and had her first manhattan. It used to be that one or the other would suffice to bring the world into focus, but not anymore. Those had been simpler times, when she still had some memory of past happiness. Now there was only the impression of past mistakes, and even that was breaking down and melding into a general malaise that crowded every corner of her emotional vision.
She used to feel a tension each day: the uncertain cusp of hope that, with herculean effort or a stroke of dumb luck, things might still turn around. Today she just felt her way to the kitchen and groped about for the shaker, hoping she had remembered to refill the ice cube trays.
