Chapter 7: The Gray

The week after the user testing, David stops setting alarms.

Not as a decision. He just forgets. Or doesn’t care. The line is blurry.

He wakes when his body wakes. Usually around 10 AM. Sometimes 11. Once, on Thursday, at 1:47 PM. The afternoon sun cutting harsh angles through the blinds.

The apartment smells stale. Not terrible. Just—lived in. Unwashed dishes in the sink. A coffee mug on the desk with a ring of dried residue. Laundry in a pile near the closet. He meant to wash it. When? Last week? Two weeks ago?

Time is strange. Days blend together.

Monday—maybe Monday—David spends four hours fixing a bug in the content sequencer.

Not because it matters. The whole approach is wrong. He knows it’s wrong. The twelve users said so: It feels like everything else.

But the alternative is staring at the wall.

So he fixes the bug. The code compiles cleanly. All tests pass. Green checkmarks. The satisfaction lasts maybe thirty seconds.

Then nothing.

He closes the laptop. Opens the refrigerator. Rice and eggs. He’s been eating rice and eggs for—how long? The rice bag is nearly empty. He should buy more.

He doesn’t.

Eats the eggs scrambled. No salt. Standing at the counter. Doesn’t taste them. Just chews. Swallows. Puts the plate in the sink with the others.

The apartment is quiet. Outside, the city hums. Cars. Voices. Someone’s music thumping from a few floors down.

David returns to his desk. Sits in the chair. The laptop is closed. His phone is face down. The whiteboard on the wall still shows their optimistic timeline from March: “MVP Complete: May 15.”

It’s June now. Late June. Nearly July.

He should erase it.

Doesn’t.

Just sits.

Tuesday—if it is Tuesday—Alex texts three times.

“You good?”

“Want to sync up this afternoon?”

“David?”

David sees the messages. Doesn’t respond.

Not because he’s angry. Not because he’s avoiding.

He just… doesn’t have anything to say.

What would he say? “I’m fine”? He’s not fine. “We need to pivot”? To what? “I’m thinking about next steps”? He’s not thinking. He’s not doing anything.

Around 6 PM—he thinks it’s 6 PM, the light is fading—David picks up his phone. Opens the messages. Types: “Sorry. Busy. We’ll talk soon.”

Deletes it.

Types: “Not in a good place. Need some time.”

Deletes it.

Types: “Yeah I’m good.”

Sends it.

Alex responds immediately. “Cool. Let me know when you want to regroup.”

David sets the phone face-down again.

The lie is easier. Simpler. Requires less energy than the truth.

Wednesday, he doesn’t get out of bed until noon.

Not because he’s tired. He slept eleven hours. Just—what’s the point?

The checking account sits at $36,800. Rent is due in six days. That’s $1,600. After that: $35,200.

Eight months of runway becomes seven. Becomes six. The countdown continues whether he’s building or not.

David lies in bed. Stares at the ceiling. There’s a crack he’s never noticed before. Small. Hairline. Starts near the light fixture and runs toward the corner.

How long has that been there?

He stares at it for forty minutes.

Eventually his bladder forces him up. He uses the bathroom. Catches his reflection in the mirror. Hasn’t shaved in—a week? More? His hair is greasy. His eyes are dull.

He looks like someone who’s given up.

Is that what this is? Giving up?

David doesn’t know. Doesn’t have the energy to figure it out.

He shuffles to the kitchen. Opens the refrigerator. Nearly empty. Eggs are gone. Just rice. Some condiments. A beer Alex left three weeks ago.

He should go to the store.

Instead he makes coffee. Black. No milk left. The coffee tastes bitter. Burnt. He drinks it anyway.

Returns to bed. Pulls the laptop onto his lap. Opens it.

The prototype is there. Minimized. He forgot to close it last time.

David looks at it. The curiosity question sits at the top of the screen: “What do you actually want to learn about?”

He closes it without testing anything.

Opens his email instead. Forty-seven unread messages. Probably his mother. Probably Alex. Probably automated subscriptions he never unsubscribed from.

He doesn’t check.

Closes the email. Closes the laptop. Sets it on the floor.

Lies back down.

The ceiling crack is still there.

Thursday his mother calls.

He answers. Immediately regrets it.

“David?” Her voice is concerned. “I’ve been calling. You haven’t answered.”

“Sorry. I’ve been busy.”

“Busy with what?”

“Work. The company.”

“How is that going?”

The question hangs in the air. How is it going?

Failed. Failing. Dead in the water. Twelve users said it’s like everything else. $8,000 burned for nothing. Seven months of runway left. No path forward. No plan. No energy to make a plan.

“It’s going,” David says.

“Your father is asking when you’ll visit. Maybe for his birthday in August?”

August. Two months away. Will David still be doing this in August? Or will he be back in a corporate job, this whole chapter filed under “lessons learned”?

“Maybe,” he says. “I’ll check my calendar.”

“You said that last time.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Things are just—” He stops. Can’t finish the sentence. “—busy.”

Silence on the other end. His mother can hear the lie. She always can.

“Are you eating?” she asks quietly.

“Yes.”

“Real food?”

“Yes, Mom.”

More silence.

“Okay,” she says finally. “Call me next week. Please.”

“I will.”

They hang up.

David sets the phone down. Feels nothing about the conversation. Not guilt. Not love. Just—blank.

When did feelings stop?

He can’t remember.

Friday—he thinks it’s Friday, but honestly, who knows—David sits at his desk for six hours.

Doesn’t code. Doesn’t plan. Doesn’t email.

Just sits.

The chair is uncomfortable. His lower back developed a constant ache somewhere in the past month. From too many hours sitting. Or lying in bed. His body hurts in vague, ambient ways.

Around 3 PM, he realizes he hasn’t eaten today.

He should eat.

Doesn’t.

Just keeps sitting.

The screen saver activates. Photos from his college graduation. He looks young in them. Optimistic. The smile looks real.

When was that? Six years ago? Seven?

Different person.

The photos cycle. Family dinner. His parents looking proud. His father’s hand on his shoulder. His mother in a dress she probably bought special for the occasion.

They were so happy.

Now David is—what? Almost broke. Building something nobody wants. Lying to them about how it’s going.

He closes the laptop. The photos disappear.

The apartment is very quiet.

Outside, the city is alive. Friday evening. People are probably heading to happy hour. Making weekend plans. Living normal lives.

David sits in the quiet.

Feels nothing about it.

Not envy. Not loneliness. Just—nothing.

This is the bottom. Not dramatic. Not a breakdown.

Just the flat, gray place where caring stops.

The weekend passes.

David doesn’t remember most of it.

Saturday: couch. Sunday: bed. Maybe some food. Maybe a shower. The details are fuzzy.

He exists. That’s about it.

Monday.

David wakes at 11:17 AM. The apartment is warm. Stuffy. When did he last open a window?

He lies in bed for twenty minutes. Staring at the ceiling crack.

It’s gotten longer. Or he’s noticing more of it. The crack branches near the corner. Creates a Y-shape.

Cracks do that. Spread. Split. Get worse if you don’t fix them.

He should probably tell the landlord.

Won’t.

Eventually, he gets up. Uses the bathroom. Looks in the mirror.

His beard is uneven. His eyes are bloodshot. He looks sick.

Maybe he is sick. Depression is sick, right? Or is this just what failure looks like?

David splashes water on his face. Doesn’t help.

He shuffles to the kitchen. Opens the refrigerator.

Empty except for condiments and Alex’s beer.

He should go to the store. Should eat real food. Should do… something.

Instead he opens the beer. Takes a sip. It’s flat. Tastes awful.

He drinks it anyway. Standing at the counter. Looking out the window.

The city below is bright with early summer. Trees in bloom. People in shorts. Life happening.

David finishes the beer. Sets the bottle on the counter with the dirty dishes.

Returns to his desk.

The laptop is still closed from Friday. Or Thursday. Whichever day that was.

He should work. Should open it. Should try again.

But what’s the point?

He’s tried three times. Three iterations. Each one failed. The users don’t want it. Or they want it but don’t need it. Or they need it but won’t pay for it.

The math doesn’t work. The vision doesn’t translate. The gap between what he imagines and what he can build is too wide.

Maybe he’s not good enough.

Maybe the idea is bad.

Maybe his mother was right and this whole thing is him refusing to grow up and get a real job.

David sits at the desk. Doesn’t open the laptop.

Just sits. Hands in his lap. Staring at the closed aluminum lid.

Minutes pass. Many of them.

The sunlight shifts. The room gets warmer.

Outside, someone laughs. The sound carries through the closed window. Bright. Genuine.

David can’t remember the last time he laughed.

Around 2 PM—the clock says 2:13—David’s hand moves without conscious decision.

Opens the laptop.

Not to work. Just to… do something. Anything. The blankness is worse than failure.

The prototype loads. Still open from whenever.

The curiosity question: “What do you actually want to learn about?”

David stares at it.

When was the last time he was curious about anything?

Not the platform. Not the metrics. Just—genuinely curious. Wanting to know something for the sake of knowing.

He can’t remember.

Sixteen-year-old David in that library was curious. Heard Jobs’s voice and wanted to know what it meant. Carried that yearning for years.

Where did it go?

His fingers hover over the keyboard.

Then, without planning to, he types: “What happens when you stop caring about anything?”

It’s not a real query. The prototype doesn’t have content for that. But he types it anyway.

The screen thinks. Tries to process. The knowledge graph starts to form.

Then crashes. Error message. “No content path found.”

David almost smiles. Of course. Even the prototype can’t answer that.

He closes the error.

Sits looking at the empty search box.

Actually—wait.

Why did it crash instead of saying “sorry, I don’t have content for that”?

It’s a small thing. A bug. Barely matters.

But David’s brain—engineer brain, problem-solver brain—catches on it.

The error handling is wrong. If there’s no content path, it should gracefully fail. Not throw an exception.

He pulls up the code. Scrolls to the error handling module.

There. Line 67. It checks for empty results but doesn’t handle null returns.

One-line fix. Add a null check.

David fixes it. Not because it matters. Just because he’s looking at it.

Tests it. Types the same query: “What happens when you stop caring about anything?”

This time: “I don’t have content for that yet. Try something else?”

Better.

He closes the test.

Looks at the code again.

While he’s here, there’s another bug. The content sequencer sometimes displays nodes in the wrong order. He’s known about it for weeks. Never fixed it because—why bother?

But his fingers are moving now. Muscle memory. Find the bug. Fix the bug.

Ten minutes later, it’s fixed.

He tests it. Works.

Sits back.

Two bugs fixed. Neither matters. The product is still wrong. The users still don’t want it.

But his hands aren’t shaking anymore.

His chest doesn’t feel quite so tight.

For the first time in eight days—or nine, or ten, he’s lost count—David’s brain is doing something other than numbly existing.

It’s not excitement. Not hope. Not even really interest.

Just—motion. Forward. Something instead of nothing.

He opens the prototype again. Looks at the curiosity question.

“What do you actually want to learn about?”

The girl from user testing said she typed something random because she didn’t think it mattered.

Why didn’t she think it mattered?

The question arrives quietly. Not urgently. Just—there.

David opens a blank document. Types: “Why didn’t it feel like it mattered?”

Stares at the question.

Doesn’t have an answer yet.

But for the first time in days, he’s asking.

That’s something.

Not recovery. Not breakthrough.

Just—a small return of curiosity.

The smallest crack in the numbness.

David closes the document. Saves it. Labels it: “Questions.”

Looks at the clock. 3:47 PM.

He should eat. Should shower. Should call Alex back. Should do a lot of things.

Instead he opens the code again.

There’s a third bug. Minor. The knowledge graph rendering sometimes overlaps nodes on mobile.

He’s known about it. Never cared.

Now—for no reason he can name—he wants to fix it.

Not because it’ll save the company. Not because users are demanding it.

Just because it’s there. Broken. Fixable.

And fixing broken things is what he does.

Even when nothing else makes sense.

At 11 PM, David is still at his desk.

Fixed seven bugs. Not urgent ones. Just—things that were wrong.

His back hurts. His eyes hurt. His stomach is empty.

But his hands are moving. His brain is working.

He’s not numb anymore.

Not happy. Not hopeful. Not confident.

Just—present. Doing the work. One line of code at a time.

Around midnight, he saves everything. Closes the laptop.

Looks around the apartment.

It’s a mess. Dirty dishes. Laundry pile. Stale air.

He opens a window. The night air flows in. Cool. Fresh. The city sounds filter through—distant traffic, someone’s TV, the hum of existing.

David takes a breath. The first real breath in days.

Tomorrow he’ll clean. Maybe. Or maybe he’ll keep coding. Fix more bugs. Figure out what’s broken and why.

Not to save the company. Just to do the work.

Because the work—even when it doesn’t matter—is better than the gray.

The numbness is lifting. Slowly. Unevenly.

But lifting.

And somewhere under it, faint but present, is the thing he thought he’d lost:

Curiosity.

Not about success. Not about the vision. Just—what’s broken? What’s the next problem? What happens if I try this?

The smallest questions.

The beginning of caring again.

David turns off the lights. The apartment goes dark. The city glows through the open window.

He falls asleep on the futon—not the floor, at least that’s progress.

Dreams about code. About bugs fixed and problems solved.

Nothing profound. Nothing transformative.

Just work.

And that’s enough.

For tonight.

For now.

The gray is fading.

End of Chapter 7