(Note: This is the second installment of Mike Magnuson's series, "The Falls," an OnMilwaukee.com fiction exclusive. Please note that the series may contain adult language and situations. Read the first installment here.)

And Tom questioned: Would a life be worth living if living essentially were a form of being dead?

When he was alone, which he always was, he focused a great deal, because he really had nothing else to do but focus on things a great deal, on the subject of resignation, of all the things to which his life was resigned. For instance, he was resigned to having a squad car tail his Audi hither and yon around the Falls because it still had North Carolina plates on it, signifying to the authorities that this one thing, and this person driving it, was definitely not like the others. This person had to be up to something. Tom was, in fact, resigned to not being up to anything, which made him somehow sad. He was resigned to being stupid, too. Thus: How the hell could he have been stupid enough to leave Asheville? Leave his old-hippie friends and the vegetables they grew? And who cared if they were full of shit when they said they grew vegetables with their souls? Why wouldn't they? Their vegetables did have soul. After all, organic smelled of shit. Shit was organic. Not to mention the tree-topped mountains rising from their midst and fog clearing over their ridgelines at midday!

So what. Tom thought a lot about that, too. Who gave a shit? He had blown it. His wife left him, and he should have stood his ground and kept his restaurant and just dealt with it, but nope, he had run here to the Falls at the worst time of year, January, when the daily high temperatures were colder than an average walk-in freezer, and oh boy, Tom, didn't you feel sorry for yourself for running away?

And for what? Because he had to buy mid-rate vegetables from Pick 'n Save? Or eat the duck a l'orange at the Odyssey diner on Appleton Avenue and fantasize about severing the chef's hands and throwing them into a pot of simmering vegetable stock, accented with bitter lemongrass and cumin?

Tuesday morning, he rose again early and stumbled outside his townhouse and cranked up his Audi and said, "Freezing my ass off will help my body better tolerate freezing my ass off." He then began scraping ice off the windows as if scraping burnt toast and, yes, freezing his ass off for who knew how long? Why would it matter? Why would the temperature feel any more moderate the longer he stood out in it?

When he got inside the car, he blasted the heat even more -- an attempt to flash-roast himself as best he could in the four minutes it took to drive to the YMCA. But he felt resigned to feeling better. People would smile at him when he entered the building and make no mention that a man had died in the parking lot the day before; not even look the slightest bit concerned or saddened or in communication with higher powers about the endlessly uneventful eternity the church promised awaited us. Why would anyone want eternal life? Go on like this? Forever? You had to be kidding.

He exercised for two hours, same machines as the day before, the ones requiring a sort of docile shuffle: the NordicTrack, the Stairmaster, the elliptical trainer. His mind relaxed and did not dwell too long on one idea or another, and his mood began to improve. He realized he was happier at this moment than he had been in weeks, but he was still as miserable as shit! This made him laugh, and it felt good to laugh. Afterwards, in the locker room, he whistled they way he once had whistled when preparing Marissa's favorite dish -- spinach raviolis stuffed with spaghetti squash and swimming in her favorite shitake cream sauce. Forget that. Forget Marissa. Forget the shitakes. He performed the ablutions necessary for suburban civilianhood: sauna, shave, shower, apply deodorant, powder balls, tuck shirt into trousers, comb hair, affect smile to disguise an absolute belief that humanity, let it be not said otherwise, was fucked up.

And of course he drank plenty of water.

When he remerged into the parking lot, to his vague pleasure, he did not feel as cold as he had before dawn. The daylight was dim. Clouds formed an oppressive-looking crud overhead, but this boded well for air temperature. Clouds in winter held the warmth near the ground the same way a straightjacket held a psychotic's arms to his ribcage, still strong and dangerous but tempered and temporarily under control.

On that fine note, Tom resigned himself to maintain a pleasant attitude for the day.

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