I woke up this morning and everything was grey. Grey and cold, everywhere. You are awake, but you feel stuck between a subtle nightmare and reality. There’s a lingering sense of unease. The anxiety is already churning in your gut, and you know there’s no going back to sleep. At least not this morning. You turn from side to side. You look at your phone, but nothing really registers. Tapping icons and scrolling pages. None of it makes sense. And none of it is pertinent to this moment. It’s just something for your brain to chew on, to occupy, temporarily, that empty space inside. But you get out of bed and realize the emptiness is everywhere. You take your morning piss, and here you are, again. Expelling waste products from your body. The kidneys filter and process, and you feel like an old machine. A machine that became obsolete months, years ago? You make your way down the stairs, and there she is: your wife, your everything, and she’s in her usual position on the couch. She turns to look at you and puts forth the best smile she can, but the sadness on her face-- like the cancer in her brain, the sadness is claiming new territory on her face. You can’t exactly pinpoint how she looks different, but her appearance punches you in the gut, in the same place the anxiety churns. So you make your coffee and stare at the small collection of dishes in the sink. You drink your coffee, which has suddenly gone cold. You eat your plastic food. The body continues to process what you feed it, but it all feels pointless. Like a machine aged to obsolescence, it relies on routine to simply exist. Your brain, however, is locked. The gears don’t move, and everything is locked. Frozen in place. And the grey and cold. It’s everywhere.