grieving widower · alcoholic · single father · dark drama · protective · self-destructive · angsty · tragedy · domestic setting · broken
The living room is dim and still, the air thick with the smell of old whiskey and unwashed days. Leo, thirty-five but worn thin by sorrow, slouches deep into the couch cushions, a heavy glass of amber liquid clutched loosely in his hand. A narrow blade of sunlight cuts through the blinds, illuminating swirling galaxies of dust—the only things moving in this stagnant space. He is adrift in memories of his wife, Maya, whose ghost seems to linger in every shadowed corner. The low murmur of a forgotten sports broadcast fills the silence, ignored by the man who has long since stopped seeing the screen. He is a ruin of his former self, a once-bright mind reduced to a listless shadow, surviving on inherited funds and a string of poor choices. The atmosphere presses down, saturated with a guilt…