Darryl eats eggs for breakfast every day and leaves his crusted plate on the table for someone else to clean. Sometimes the eggs are runny and he sops up the orange runs with toast. Sometimes the eggs are burnt and he feeds them to the dog and doesn’t eat till noon. He wakes up early and goes to bed late, he never gets no sleep. Some people call Darryl the most miserable man in Tennessee. Darryl’s wife steals his money in front of him, shoves it right in her purse. Darryl’s kids hate him, his kids call him “loser” and “fatso” and “gay.” Darryl watches sports on TV and his team always loses. Darryl’s truck breaks down on the way to the job site and he kicks the truck and it hurts his foot. He lays on the side of the highway as the semis plow by and no one stops to help. Fiberglass fills Darryl’s lungs and he hacks them up on the port-a-john floor. Sawdust gets in Darryl’s eyes and Darryl’s coworkers call him a faggot when he looks like he’s crying even though he’s not.

Darryl’s hardhat is too big and his pants fall down, he’s got coffee stains on his shirt. Darryl stares out the window of the job site trailer while his boss screams at him and bangs his fists on the desk for something Darryl didn’t do. Darryl gets threatened with termination, Darryl’s kids are ugly, and Darryl’s dog bites him when he walks in. Darryl’s mom died of cancer, Darryl’s dad’s got dementia, and last winter Darryl’s gallbladder up and quit.

Darryl cherishes the bad and lies awake at night staring at the ceiling hoping more bad things will come while his wife rides his dick and calls him the wrong name. Darryl’s wife fucks the neighbor and cums harder than ever. Darryl’s pastor tells him he’s going to hell. Darryl is missing a finger which he blew off while cleaning his gun. The hospital tells Darryl it wasn’t an accident, the hospital tells Darryl it was actually a “negligent discharge.” A bus crashes into the trees near Darryl’s house and he walks down hoping to see something bad. Darryl’s daughter is killed in the bus crash, all the other children survive. Darryl goes to his dead daughter’s funeral and no one shakes Darryl’s hand. The man who fucks his wife tells him he’s real sorry about losing Darryl’s daughter, that she was a good kid. Darryl scarfs potato salad after his daughter’s funeral while his wife cries on another man’s shoulder. Darryl gets food poisoning from the potato salad and shits his brains out while laughing. Darryl stands in his dead daughter’s room crying and calls himself a waste of breath, a sorry loser, and a faggot. Darryl forgets his surroundings and masturbates on the floor. Darryl slips in the shower and Darryl misses work. He tells his wife that his back is crooked as she leaves the house and Darryl’s wife says “good.” Darryl sits alone in his chair and watches TV. He sees a commercial for the miserable, the sad and the depressed and dials the hotline. The operator calls Darryl a faggot, and Darryl says “thank you” and hangs up the phone.

Darryl wears camouflage and goes hunting alone in the woods and misses every shot. The deer laugh at Darryl and follow him to his house, and the deer fuck Darryl’s wife too. Darryl sleeps in his dead daughter’s bed beneath the pale pink sheets clouded with rings of piss and dreams about fishes. Darryl dreams of standing on the shoreline in the muck of the Pigeon River but every time Darryl’s about to net a mighty bronze back, the fish breaks the line and swims away from Darryl. Darryl don’t catch nothin’, not even in his dreams. Darryl goes back to work and builds a house, Darryl crushes his fingers with his hammer, Darryl hits his head on a wooden beam and the stars laugh at Darryl swirling round his head. Darryl takes pills for his back and drives home pretending he is drunk. Darryl hits a mailbox, just for fun. Sometimes Darryl cooks dinner and burns down the kitchen, sometimes it turns out good and he howls as he eats. 

Darryl loves misery, Darryl loves pain. Darryl goes to his brother’s farm and gets kicked by a mule named Josephine after his mother. Darryl finds himself to be an enemy of all living creatures and eats them with spitefulness. Darryl eats their meat and savors the tissue and grit stuck between his inflamed gums and cuckold cheeks. Darryl loves the idea of perfection. Darryl thinks about death, his gravestone, the inscription reading “Here lays the most miserable man in Tennessee.” Darryl barrels down I-40 going the wrong direction but his truck don’t break down, Darryl don’t wear no seatbelt. Darryl collides head on with a truck bigger than Darryl’s truck because Darryl’s truck is small. The engine comes through the dash, pinning half of Darryl to the floorboard and the other half to the dash, and a li’l bit of Darryl splashes across the back window too. A spider web splinters the windshield and no one stops to help. The police take pictures of Darryl’s body and show them to their friends. No one claims Darryl’s remains as family or friend and there ain’t no funeral and there ain’t no gravestone. Darryl’s wife and dead daughter’s ghost move into the house of the man who fucks Darryl’s wife. Darryl’s body burns in the cremation chamber and his fat burns hotter than his muscles and his bones burn the longest.

Rebekah Morgan is a writer living in good ole Eastern Tennessee. Previous work can be found with Bull Magazine, Fence, Joyland Magazine, Maudlin House, and New York Tyrant, among other places.