The house had settled into its night noises.
Not silence, silence belonged to empty places, but the small, domestic sounds of a life that kept going even when you stopped moving. The fridge clicked on and off. A pipe somewhere made a soft ticking as it cooled. His youngest had coughed once, half asleep, and then gone still again.
Kurt sat at the desk with his shoulders slightly hunched, the way they'd been for weeks. Screen light washed his hands an unhealthy colour. The laptop fan ran too often now, as if it was tired too.
He had a spreadsheet open that he hadn't updated since Monday. Columns with headings like Rent, School, Fuel, Food. Totals he'd reworked until the numbers blurred. On another tab, his email inbox showed a neat row of unopened messages.
He knew what they were.
You didn't need to open them to feel the rejection. The subject lines did enough damage.
He could hear his wife moving earlier, quiet footsteps, the low clink of a mug, the tap turning on and off. She hadn't said anything. She never said anything at this time of night unless it was necessary. That was its own kind of kindness.
He'd promised her he'd stop at midnight.
He checked the clock in the corner of the screen.
00:47.
He told himself he was being productive. He'd applied for eight roles today. Tailored cover notes. Adjusted the CV. Re-ordered bullet points so his achievements sounded less like desperation and more like certainty. He'd clicked the same "Easy Apply" button with different hope each time.
Then he'd refreshed his inbox.
It wasn't panic keeping him there. Panic was a sudden flood. This was something else: a slow, steady pressure that made your breathing shallow without you noticing. Like the air in the room had changed and you were just adapting to it.
He stared at the line of unopened emails again.
He thought about opening them all in one go, like ripping off a plaster. Then he thought about the kids. School run. Breakfast. The way his oldest had looked at him recently when he said we'll be fine.
He closed the inbox tab without opening anything.
A grown man shouldn't be afraid of words on a screen. He knew that. But fear didn't care about pride. Fear cared about patterns.
Rejection was a pattern now.
He leaned back and rolled his neck once, feeling tightness crackle behind his ears. His body felt heavy in the chair, like gravity had increased by a few degrees.
He told himself: Get up. Drink water. Go to bed.
The thought arrived cleanly, like good advice does. Then it faded, the way good advice always fades when you're tired enough.
He rested his forearms on the desk and lowered his head slightly, eyes still open.
In that posture, for a moment, it was easy to pretend he was still in control. Like he was choosing a pause.
The screen blurred.
Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaked. The house settling again, rearranging itself around sleeping bodies.
He thought about his wife. About the look she wore when she pretended not to be counting costs in her head. About the way she didn't ask him how the job search was going anymore, because asking meant admitting they were both scared.
He thought about his kids. About being a father who was present, and a father who provided. How those two things were supposed to overlap. How lately they felt like opposing forces, pulling him apart.
He blinked.
The room felt colder.
Not physically colder at first, no change in temperature, no draft, but the kind of cold you feel when something you didn't notice has stopped. Like a hum turning off. Like a background noise disappearing so completely your mind panics for half a second and then tries to deny it.
His fingers twitched on the keyboard.
His eyelids lowered.
Just a minute, he thought. Just a minute and I'll…
The sentence didn't finish.
The desk was still beneath his arms. The chair still held him. The laptop still glowed.
And then, very quietly, his awareness slipped as if it had been lifted out of him.