Running in quicksand

The week has been gray with massive continents of clouds that refuse to give up the goods and it's hard to tell what time of the day it is without a clock. The only clocks I use are on my computers and I'm not at the computer all the time.

In the darkness I reach for the light just as thumping footsteps stumble around in the attic over my head where the only thing up there is the furnace, the same furnace that last year the landlord had two guys check because it wasn't working and I found it difficult to work wrapped mummy-like in blankets with heavy gloves on my hands. The double split in the marble vanity of the bathroom sink reminds me daily of their visit, as does the still working furnace set at a balmy 68 degrees. The inept burglar that has somehow gotten into the house via the sagging roof and into the furnace filled attic, which is little more than a crawl space, is more likely to be the furnace clearing its morning throat with a rattling, cigarette cough rather than some miscreant bent on stealing my collection of books and boxes.

The yolk of the street light down the alley glares through the waving branches into my eyes and the blackness that precedes the dawn is complete everywhere but here where the spiraled twists of the bedside lamp bulb cast a pallid, but adequate glow across the littered landscape of my bed. Jumbled pillows and books sprawl read and half read across the bare mattress where the sheets have pulled loose in my struggle with nightmare goblins wrestling me to rest in winding sheets before the last battle with the working week. It's Friday, so why does it feel like Tuesday with the long expanse of the week still ahead? It's like running in quicksand.