It's too early.  I don't know why I want to be awake this early, there is nothing but darkness and the pounding rain.  There is nothing but the sense that the world has been given a coat of black semi-gloss paint, slick and wet.

I wake with a chill that has settled deeply and won't be dispersed.  I wake to apparations of thoughts that did not escape into dreams, but wait for my conscious acknowledgment.  I don't know which doubts to entertain first.  They all dance and vie for my attention.  Each shows its neediness and works at appealing to my sleep-drugged mind.

It doesn't matter which I choose, any of them sends my morning spinning into a complete reassessment of my life and the decision to fix everything.  My resolve lasts only until the hopelessness falls on me like a cold, dark rain.

I wander into the bathroom trying to find a light so that I can see my watch and know the time. It doesn't matter what the time is, I have been driven from my bed by an inner force and will not return there.  I wonder if I ever know the time, or how much time has gone by, or how much is left and what I will pay for what I have wasted.

The face in the mirror seems familiar but unfocused.  I see that the lines on my forehead look deepest after sleep and realize that it is while I tarry in unconsciousness that they are etched and carved. What is it that I do or think or dream that leaves such marks of worry on my face?  Where is my rest? I sleep, but do I ever rest? I have a brief thought of putting on some cream to soothe the dry skin and smooth those lines of tension but instead I simply walk away from the mirror. I cannot face the fear that is reflected there.

 As I turn, I notice that lack of exercise is diminishing any tone of muscles I had in my arms and shoulders and think I should go now and do exercises in the morning; but instead I pour more coffee and go sit at the desk in the dark corner, only to stare and try to bargain with an unresponsive computer screen.  The immobility emanates from my spirit but my body acquiesces.

Something nags at my mind, something lurks beneath the surface of my consciousness.  It has clothed itself in shadows, it pokes a finger and tickles a neuron, then hides again as if it were a game. Perhaps this is the dream unremembered, perhaps it knows the story of the lines.  I try to will it into lines on the page but it slips from my grasp and buries itself deeper into my subconscious.

 I want to write, but the words have left me and I have nothing but my coffee and my cigarette for company and no sound but the endless echo of the pounding rain.