The day begins wrong. It begins at the wrong time, and with the very concept of time feeling much like water seeping into cracks between floorboards, impossible to contain. Sorting through time, trying to discern one hour from the next would later prove to be even worse than this. Like trying to collate conflicting currents in a sea of troubles, like trying to divide bodies of water that touched, keeping the particles separate from each other.
He wakes vaguely unaware that he is at all, and definitely not remembering his name. When he finally regains the memory of what a clock is he glances over at his alarm, which was going off. Going off at 11? Did he always wake up at 11. It felt too late. But yet there was no rush? Why didn't he feel like he had anywhere to be today? It was a Tuesday was it not?
He was far too tired to go to work. What from he did not know? He must've gone to bed later than he realized. And he must be late to work now, but.... He wasn't somehow.... No he couldn't have been. If he was the familiar pang of uncertainty, of pressure, of life itself, of everything he had to deal with in it just to survive, this would be in his stomach now.... But it wasn't.
He was just... Relaxed somehow, and the day felt loud to him. Loud in a way he couldn't pinpoint. Loud in a way that made him forget.
He dressed. For what? For work. Of course. Of course. Of course. of course. What else would it be for? He put on oddly white socks. They were sparklingly clean but worn. Or maybe it was his vision. everything was different, slightly, cleaner... Brighter... Farther away.
His socks were on. He wiggled his toe, flexed them. Stretched. Stretched better. Stood up. Crossed. Phone. Keys. Wallet? Wallet? Pocket. Wallet. Pants? Yes. No. Yes. What. What. What was happening.
And then he was driving.
"Think I'm having a fucking stroke" he said to the pidgeon eating seed to his left, on the sidewalk. He said to the world. To himself. To no one. He said to know if it were true. As if saying it would tell him.
And then there was a flash. Of something. Someone. To his left, where the pidgeon now was running from, a person, an unremarkable person at that, so unremarkable, the only remarkable thing was how much he had noticed in the first place. And then. traffic restarted, and he moved. And the fog intensified.
