I am sitting in a cafe. Stairs are to my left. Seated in a round table too big to be holding the threefour people currently conversing amongst its seats, I am having a regular day. A coworker and I get up; we have things to be doing. Left, up, through the hall. There is a silence knowing we have only a few things that connect us and have to spend a disproportionate time together for people in that circumstance. We enjoy each other’s company but will not dare take this any further. There is still a push to have some sort of conversation going, to seem interested. These surface level feelers on how their hobbies (or what you thought their hobbies were) are going are the only ways you can attach yourself to the moment with any more reality than a stray cat you see once. He tells me he is leaving work.
5h 40m to 5h 45m: Waking up at night is no concern for me. I am the leading expert in waking up for no reason tens of times a night. My therapist thinks it’s a byproduct of my nervous system being on call all the time. Maybe I should work for big tech. My mouth is dry. I am indecisive when it comes to mouth tape: Will it cure my sleep? Will I die if I swallow my tongue or something? I don’t want to eat raw liver from a cutting board. End grain, though; the good stuff.
5h 47m to 5h 49m: The initial attempt at going back has failed. Houston? No dice. I turn to my right. The rare occasion where the collapse of the previous night torpedoed my desert mouth. I do manage to sleep in the end.
6h 00m to 6h 06m: Not for long. This time feels more final. I yearn for screen. Maybe water is more important. No water fairy in this house so I have to haul my own ass. I own two water jugs. Yesterday’s failures bite me once more. The endless containerization of water fascinates me: river -> reservoir -> carboy -> jug -> glass -> me. Something something bureaucracy. The carboy is almost empty too. Can’t pump any more out of the sucker. I pay my respects, decapitate it and take in whatever it has to offer, acapella. I don’t solve the root cause, the carcass lays there. I have found my temporary sustenance.
6h 17m to 6h 30m: I am back in bed with an uneasy feeling. I don’t think I am here for the intended purpose. I need to do something, do that now, really it’s urgent. Freshen up and open the closest computer. This is not phone or tablet business. I am serious.
6h 34m to 6h 46m: I am on the couch in my underwear, a mustard yellow sweater from the late grandfather and am looking at the entry requirements for PhD programs. It is daunting. The best schools are looking for great results. I have those. My masters is weak. It was a really challenging time for me, I never got used to studying in a notoriously studious and prestigious top top uni. So I didn’t. My marks were alright but not the best. I struggled to adapt, was alone. Moralton rise up. The only exam I failed in my life was the quantum informatics class I took. I missed on the exam the first time due to covid. I did not study at all for the time I did take it. Rough semester that. I took the class during my thesis period. 6 months. I started studies a month prior to the exam. I had never taken this much time to study anything apart from my thesis. It was a good 6 months. Blue and green.
6h 47m to 6h 50m: Thank you Rycolab. My merits are there. I do make the entry requirements. The newest fear I had has now subsided. Take that, fear. The older ones remain. The demon dogs are hard to fight. I feel like having an almond magnum, everyone’s favorite of the canonical magnums. It feels good. This feels real. It feels like the right time.
7h 02m to 7h 09m: The search continues and it feels fresh. It feels like the past in a way. Summer is gone. I had opened the blinds in the living room yesterday, the sun is coming in. The temp had dropped artificially. Memories of bygone eras loomed in the air. The larger items in your life experience and lead many deja vu’s, they trigger your senses in a way where when all of the planets align you see yourself in an exact moment you were. You are not the same and that is the most worrying thing ever. How strange? You never face the fact that you are changing. You just are, were and will be. The w’s are not you. You are you.
7h 10m to 7h 20m: I stop. Not because it is overwhelming, not because the fear is getting to me, because I feel like I got my foot in. I look outside to see the effects of the rising sun. Through a friend’s instagram story from the bygone day I saw the downpour with the cloudy dune-esque yellow hue, as though mushroom clouds were to be seen, felt and heard; the same thing I tried to capture yesterday but was let down by poor planning. The leaves are reddening. It is happening. This is the earliest I have been awake and happy about it in some time. I have missed it.
7h 33m - 7h 34m: I still have some time. I know what to do. Today will be a good day.
7h 34m to 7h 35m: I turn on the TV, I open the VPN and change my location to Denmark. I have never been. Seems like somewhere I would enjoy visiting. I go back to the home screen and open Mubi.
7h 36m - : I start watching Cleo from 5 to 7.