Rise and Shine

No sooner did my mind drift off into the sweet oblivion of sleep than it was torn back to reality again by a sudden explosion of cackling. The screeching bursts of noise echoed out, filling the room, and boring progressively deeper and deeper into my skull with each successive concussion of pure sonic hate. 

Oh fuck you, alarm clock.

In the moments of blurry thought in between detonations of sound, I contemplate launching the offensive chunk of plastic across my room, reveling in that brief moment of silent flight, and the satisfying crash that was sure to follow.  However, the energy required to actually do that was well beyond me.  Worse, I knew with absolute certainty that an attempt would lead to little more than knocking the damn thing onto the floor.  Still attached to the wall, the cackling would, of course, continue unabated- mocking me, and punctuating my feeble attempt to silence it.  So on it goes,

screeching and

cackling and

begging and

annoying and

ordering and

demanding me to

open my eyes and

sit up and

get ready and

get moving and

 God DAMN IT shut the hell up! 

Sitting up in bed now, blankets half on the floor and hand still clutching the alarm clock, I begin to make the slow, arduous transition from being simply awake, to actually conscious. The silence left in the wake of the alarms insistent cry hangs heavy in the air around me, a weight that threatens to crush me back down into the bed, burying me deep into the mattress and pillows. My body begs me to give in to that weight, too- a desperate plea that, for a moment, I give serious consideration- before finally forcing my crusty, bloodshot eyes open in defiance.  The dark, blurry room around me slowly comes in to focus, and as soon as I can make out a clear spot on the floor in which to land, I lurch in to motion.  One foot peeling out from under me leads the way, sliding off the edge of the bed and down toward the floor, until it plants itself onto an open patch in between articles of clothing haphazardly shed a few hours earlier.  Summoning what little energy I have, I lean my body over, and, with a little help from gravity and an involuntary grunt, manage to pitch myself forward.  My other foot comes crashing down on top of a shoe, far to the left of where I intended to step, and I stumble wildly before righting myself, weight swaying uneasily between my two splayed feet.  Ok, I'm up... hard part’s over.

Muscle memory and instinct take over for conscious action as I go through the rest of the morning routine: stumble to the kitchen; switch on the coffee maker and drop a bagel into the toaster; over to the bathroom for a five minute shit, shower and shave; stumble back into the bedroom to get dressed; back into the kitchen to collect my breakfast; and 20 minutes after the alarm sounded, I’m out the door.  Morning after morning, week after week.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Driving at 3am offers little in the way of mental stimulation, which is probably for the best, as coherent thought would no doubt give way to introspective thought. Introspection would eventually mean questioning why in the living Hell I put myself through this day after day, and to that question, I know I wouldn’t have an answer.  Not a reasonable one, anyway.  Rationalizing working three jobs, eighty-some hours a week, often operating on only two or three hours of sleep would be difficult enough, but rationalizing it after 96 days and counting without a day off would be damn near impossible. 

In a few weeks, exhaustion and a nice case of walking pneumonia would lay me out for a while, effectively ending my self-flagellation-via-work, and forcing me to take on a more civilian schedule afterwards.  Until then, however, the grind continued.  I’m still not sure exactly why I was so driven to work the shit out of myself like that, though.  “I’m young, gotta do it while I can” was the only explanation I would offer others when they asked, and somehow, that flimsy answer became a mantra for me- something I’d repeat to myself over and over throughout each day, giving me the motivation I needed to keep pushing on.

Well, I suppose telling myself I had to do it while I could was easier than asking myself why I had to do it~

~ZtB