For awhile his life had been perfectly raveled. Every single problem or daily challenge had seemed to just disappear. Not one aspect of his everyday existence seemed to be out of place or incongruent, and he was happier than he had ever imagined would be possible.
Then one morning it was all gone. The tranquility, the equanimity, the seemingly imperturbable quiet confidence - all gone.
It was if the soundtrack to his life, which he had always thought of as being a constant shuffling of the best upbeat tunes he had heard since...well, since ever, had become just a low industrial hum in the background, a droning, monotonous, dull sound with no soul or charm.
Worse yet, his general mood, which had always been regarded as consistently cheerful if not outright exuberant, had become noticeably dour, to the point that nearly everyone he knew commented on it and asked what was wrong - even people who had never previously expressed any interest in him or his well being.
For a couple of weeks he lived with the malaise without too much concern, believing it was something that would soon pass and everything would return to normal.
But it hadn't.
It had not gotten worse, but it had also not gotten better, and it was getting on two months now.
Over that period his concern for his well being had grown from mild apprehension to low-level though stressful paranoia. Throughout the course of his work day he found himself judging coworkers interactions with him as being somewhat cattish - not to the point that he was beginning to think everyone was out to get him or that there was a conspiracy against him, but it was enough to unsettle him every single time he had to sit in a meeting or had a face-to-face encounter.
He was even becoming suspicious of his pets, especially the dog he couldn't quite remember as being so aloof and indifferent to his presence.
That might be what was bothering him the most.
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