Soul Sanctuary Hub

Marcus had been saying fine for as long as he could remember.

Not only to other people — though certainly to them, automatically and efficiently, the word arriving before he had properly consulted himself about whether it was accurate. But also, and more significantly, to himself. In the quiet moments when the question arose — and it did arise, despite his best efforts to keep the days full enough that it didn’t — he answered it the same way.

Fine. Things were fine.

He was thirty-six, and he worked in insurance, and he lived alone in a flat he had chosen for its proximity to the office and its good natural light and the vague intention, never quite acted on, to fill it with more of his own presence. He had friends, and a sister he spoke to on Sundays, and a gym membership he used with the dutiful consistency of someone who has decided that consistency, if not enthusiasm, is within reach.

He was, by any external measure, fine.

And underneath that, in the way that things exist underneath a word that is being used to cover them, something else.