You'd need to tell us a lot more about Alan before I could answer/guess at the answer to that question. Where is his appointment? What's the hook? What you've written is nice and descriptive (I could smell the bacon sizzling!) but look at it this way: publishers get thousands of submissions a week/month and probably dismiss eighty or ninety percent of them after reading the first few lines. If you haven't hooked them by then, it's over.
Your opening lines have to grab the reader, and though this is well written, it doesn't do that. I have no idea where you're intending to go with it, but I have written novels and stories which I've never finished and I guess never will, and the opening lines have to be good. This is one:
"Well", said the vampire, looking out the window, "that's all very well and good for you to say, but you're alive. You can afford luxuries like that."
Okay it's nothing special, but it does grab you. You think, a vampire? And you sit up. Who's the vampire talking to? What is "all well and good"? Get the reader to ask themselves questions and don't give them the answers right away and you're making a hook. Here's another:
"Yeah yeah, I know him", I groaned into my beer, as my friend pointed the man in the silver coat out. "Did me a favour once. What? Oh, you know: he killed me."
Right away the scene has changed from a simple one to a complicated one. WHAT? He KILLED him? But how can he---? And you've got them. Is this guy a ghost? Is he mad? Does he mean something else when he says the other guy killed him? An editor now wants to read on.
But your piece doesn't do that, and I could see an editor throwing it onto the "rejections" pile. Here's an idea, just something to think about.
On the phone, Alan hears a voice. The voice asks if that's him then sounds annoyed. In the distance another voice on the line says "I thought he was supposed to be dead by now?" angrily and the phone is cut off.
Now you have a mystery, and the reader's interest.
Don't know if that helps, but can you see what I'm getting at? If your piece had ended with something like, I don't know, Alan remembered he had to feed the griffin before leaving and then took his umbrella out so that he could parachute down to the ground from his treetop apartment.... something interesting, something different. You need to stand out. I'm sure anyone who makes a living from writing will tell you the same thing.
Edit: sorry my bad. I see you mentioned he goes to a therapist. Nevertheless my comments stand. You need a hook, and this, so far, hasn't got one that I can see.
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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018
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