Red Figures

Staring at the figures on his bedside alarm clock, Ray was physically exhausted but couldn’t sleep. 3:42, it read. Tomorrow wasn’t a big day or anything, just sitting around avoiding phones calls from numbers beginning with 800 on the agenda.  “That’s the paradox of debt,” ray thought to himself. “Each day, I become more broke, charges pile up, I become less and in control. My entire existence pushes me further and further in the red rendering me more incapable of reversing my disposition.” Negative balance, fess assessed. Hoping a cigarette might ease his restlessness, ray sat up on his bed, a began feeling through the swamp of unopened envelopes blanketing his floor, in search of his sandals. “Oh well” he though to himself, “at least I can sleep in.”