Cul-de-sac

He's a thin boned man with carrot colored sandy hair. Thinning every day now. He blames his wife. Ex now. She was cutting off all social contacts. Keeping him inside the house all the time. Like a sheep, a little lam, reading his paper and watching a quiz. He always knew the answers to most of the questions. Why did he live like this for 10 years? Listening to her, putting up with her gloomy moods.
And now he resurfaces and suddenly feels his lungs fill with air. His body is older but his mind wants to return to the days before the wedding, before the mistake. Make up for the time he missed. He buys new after shave and men's magazines. He dresses adventurous and goes into town quite a lot, walking. He looks at himself in the mirror and decides he looks pretty ok after all. He'll go to the gym.
He feels reborn, young at heart and tries to charm younger women. He's ready to meet someone new. He reckons it's not too late to be a father.
But the women he meets politely decline his offers to go for a drink.
He's a recently divorced man and it's written all over him. He tries, desperately, to connect to someone, to get through to their mind, their feelings, but they won't let him in. They see a man grown old too fast. A clock that can't be turned back. And all these missing years. And he does all he can. To make up for what's not there. To show the vitality that's left, the humour and the skill. He's always clean, freshly showered and properly dressed, they think, like older men are.
No fun, no surprises. A dead end.