Tomas Gregory's stomach bulges like it is stuffed with writhing eels. He speaks from his belly, and his words come out in bellows like rotten fish.
No-one likes Tomas Gregory because he only thinks about what he suffers. When he wakes up and sees blankets of snow, soft and tall, he obliges himself to shovel and freeze. In the summer, he sits at the community pool and watches the children. He sweats profusely and burps incomprehensibly at the lifeguard, “the air ought to be a martini everyday!”
Of course, his skin cracks whenever it is dry outside, and there are no compromises in the mind of Tomas Gregory.
Whenever he stares at you, and he always does, his face seems to swell and stretch. It makes young cashiers at the grocery store nervous, his red frog face strained with worry and self-neglect. Old women on the bus recognize him as one of those men.
Clumsily tumbling down life. That is Tomas Gregory.
Bellows like Rotten Fish, for T, may life soon be kinder to you.