Just out of bed, and it’s already after 1:00 PM. Woke at 9:44 AM and then dreamt of what it would be like to get up so soon after going to bed (at 6:00 AM). Woke again at 10:47 AM and it seemed like a moment later. And I thought I would get up then—not bad, before eleven. I might even get something done before work. I woke another hour later feeling guilty for avoiding conscioussness so much, but also feeling helpless to prevent the recurring waves of blissful sleep from engulfing me.
The truth is that I have very little to do. Outside of work, it is as though I rebound from the repetitive crises and constant chaos there to a pattern of numbness when I am not at work. I relish the isolation of home. I shun the phone, the doorbell. I resent the occasional necessary appointment, the infrequent need to leave the house for groceries, or once a month to pick up a prescription.
But I know I am dead. When I am at work, my life is the railing scream of a newborn, or the tantrum of a two year old. Away from the imposed interaction of the job I become the terrified victim, pale and feeble, incapable even of the mere entertainment of my hopes, much less the achievement of their realization.
And so now time is up. I have to leave right now for work. This is the transition point, the moment in which I transform my defenses from passive and hiding to angry and seething. Here I shed the robe of the unliving to don the armor of the dead. Perhaps in the naked moment between the two, something unexpected will occur.