Whumptober 2024 Day 29: Fatigue

[rosanicus]

No. 29: FATIGUE

Labyrinth | Burnout | "Who said you could rest?"

~300 words, Steeley & Tubby, Murder by Air

Feeling thoroughly worn out, I flopped down in a chair, put my feet up in another and went fast asleep. The last thing I remember was Brian doing the same thing while Steeley paced impatiently up and down smoking a cigarette.

 

Tubby has the sort of broad, friendly face which many mistake for that of a fool - including Tubby himself. My own efforts to disabuse him of that notion are ongoing, and not terribly effective, but there’s little to be done about that. The habits of a lifetime are difficult to break.

At the moment I am thinking of, he was fast asleep on two armchairs belonging to Count Cortusoides - who himself was lying dead in a ditch with the wreckage of his ‘plane. It’s a funny old life we lead, I suppose. Brian was curled up in yet another armchair nearby, face turned into the cushion behind him. He always looked younger when he slept, almost like the boy-journalist we met years ago.

Tubby, by contrast, rarely looks less than his age. He still has lines on his face whose acquisition I witnessed, back in the war, small ones by the corners of his mouth and on his brow. Even asleep, as I often have the chance to observe, the lines never truly fade. He is rounder in the cheeks and wider at the neck than he was when we met, but the air of exhaustion was familiar enough.

An old blanket lay over the back of the poor, neglected sofa. I stubbed out my cigarette and, trying not to disturb either of my companions, lay it gently over Tubby’s sleeping form.