An early start to the week

At a quarter after one a.m. Monday morning I was standing at the counter of Rendezvous Cafe wondering whether I should get a piece of spinach pie to go along with the americano I had just ordered. I had been snacking all day on and off, but there was a twinge of hunger lingering between and below my ribs. I went with "yes" on the spinach pie. The day that had just elapsed had been thoroughly unproductive. I had failed to leave the apartment, in fact had failed to leave my living room, since I rose at eleven that morning. I had wandered from the bedroom to the living room, turned the television on, and kept it on for the whole day. Two World Cup games came and went, at noon and then at three, and then the NBA Finals game at nine, and afterward I was left wondering what the hell had happened to my day, to daylight itself, and whether the life I was living was normal in any sense of the word. During the commercial breaks I prepared small amounts of food for myself, picked up trash that had accumulated from the week before, and generally futzed around on my laptop. There had been daylight, I remember, and then a brief period of rain showers maybe around five p.m., and then sometime during the basketball game, night came. The game ended around half past midnight, and I finally took a shower, brushed my teeth, and got dressed.

I had recently started feeling more like a nocturnal mammal -- like one of the raccoons, opossums, or skunks that sniffed around the apartment complex after dark -- than a real person. The previous night I had stayed up reading until I fell asleep, but somnolence didn't come until nearly five a.m. at which time the sun had started to rise and bird noises were coming from the window. Weird dreams followed, and when I finally woke at eleven, a figment of the dreamworld followed: a feeling I had a package to drop off to some woman. That was some fourteen hours ago.

And now I was standing at the counter ordering spinach pie. The man behind the counter took a slice out of the refrigerated deli case, put it on a plate, and put the plate in the microwave. I watched the LCD timer count down for a few seconds then turned to the table behind me to get sugar for my americano. The microwave beeped, and the man deposited my spinach pie into a brown paper bag and slid it toward me. What was I doing here? Where did this preternatural urge come from? As if I could make up for a day lost by a night spent in this coffee-scented Tartarus.

About thirty minutes later, I was informed that Rendezvous was closing. I packed up my laptop, and got in my car, drove to the lab. I was there by two a.m. and finished off in short order the americano then the spinach pie. I set to work, chipping away at a list I had made a week ago. But I was distracted by the thought that I was running out of night, just as I had run out of day. The summer solstice was only a couple days away and therefore nighttime in the sense of darkness only lasted about eight hours now. By a quarter after four I sensed the coming of the sun even though I couldn't see it.

I was a scatter-brain for the next two hours: looking up papers, scratching down thoughts, typing up code, arrows going at a bunch of different targets. I felt tired but I kept telling myself it would pass. When the feeling came I dissolved some freeze-dried coffee crystals into hot water and swigged at it. I made progress, but occasionally I'd forget what I was working on. By six a.m. I decided to go see the sun rise outside but had trouble piecing together which side of the building faced east. Cardinal directions seemed like a strange idea at the time.