Rivers of Slime

Near the post office, the following occurred:
"How's the wife?" asked Mr Rows with a friendly grin.
"She's abroad," replied Jelly.
"I know. That's why I said 'wife'."

Untangling himself from that encounter, and brimming with verve, Jelly made his way through the next ten years of his life and onto a bridge over an ice frosted lake. Coffee in hand and thoughts in mind, he spent a jolly half hour in the winter cold with a look of abstract happiness on his face.

Upon returning home, he was startled to discover – by way of an answering machine – that his friend had decided to commit suicide out on the mainline. He was then saddened to discover – by way of a second message – that his friend had succeeded in committing suicide out on the mainline.

He lost his wife abroad, too. She wasn't actually dead, as far as he knew, but she was certainly missing – or, at the very least, she had left him for good. So he boiled an egg. Once he deduced it to be ready, he removed it, cracked it open and carefully placed it on his recently purchased egg cup. With the help of long, thin, remotely soldier-shaped pieces of toast, Jelly polished off his meal in no time. Well, that's an exaggeration – he actually took around ten minutes.

Some time later, he found himself huddling 'neath shelter in the rain. It wasn't exactly freezing, so he enjoyed himself and continued shopping. A nice lunch was had soon after.

The next day, Mr Rows stopped him.
"Did you ring that couple?" he asked.
"They were engaged," answered jelly.
"But they've only known each other for a few weeks! Drat, now I'll have to order that blasted Russian."
"No, I meant I couldn't get through. I'll ring tonight."

He lay down that night with the lights off and listened to Bucket Men on vinyl. After that he read a few chapters of Betweenways by Benjamin Hansen and went to bed.

You can guess the rest.