Book of Daze: Temporal Hangover Day
The sun storms through the curtains and hits Arthur like a physical assault. The real problem, however, of this temporal hangover day, is that Arthur’s brain remains anchored in the quiet dark while his body is already halfway across the room. He feels the phantom sensation of his feet hitting the cold hardwood floor before his mind has even gathered the will to command his legs to move.
This is a disgusting, disjointed existence. Arthur has become a helpless passenger in a body that is moving exactly twenty-seven minutes ahead of his consciousness. He watches his hands reach out to grasp a coffee mug that sits entirely empty on the counter, yet the back of his throat already burns with the bitter ghost of a brew that will be brewing in the near future. His stomach churns with a caffeine high that has not technically occurred, vibrating with an energy that possesses no source in the present moment.
The walk to the kitchen is a frantic exercise in avoiding a total nervous breakdown as the universe refuses to sync with Arthur’s nervous system. He sees himself opening the refrigerator door in his mind, but his physical arm has already swung it shut and has moved on to the toaster.
Arthur is a man divided against his own biology, apologizing to family members who have not yet entered the room and flinching at the sharp crash of a dropped plate that will not happen for another half hour. When he finally manages to collapse into a chair, the wood feels like it is woven from pure static. He tries to focus on the news, but the anchor is merely a puppet talking about a weather report that Arthur has already lived through in his very nerves.
Every time Arthur blinks, he sees the terrifying ghost of where he is about to be, and every time he moves, he leaves behind a pathetic trail of spent momentum. He is the punchline to a joke the universe has not even finished telling to the rest of the world.
By the time Arthur stumbles to the front door, the neighbors are already staring with a mixture of pity and genuine alarm. To them, he is a frantic blur of motion that does not align with the sluggish rhythm of the street. He is a man reacting to a car horn that will only honk three blocks away in the near future, ducking his head to avoid the flight of a bird that is still perched silently on a telephone wire.
There is absolutely no dignity in this display. Arthur feels raw and exposed, like a thick nerve ending that has been stripped of its protective coating and tossed into the wind. The world has become a slow-motion movie for him, and he is the only actor who accidentally hit the fast-forward button on a broken remote control. He is exhausted from the sheer, soul-crushing effort of trying to catch up to his own shadow.
He stands at the bus stop and feels the heavy, rhythmic vibration of the engine in his bones long before the vehicle even rounds the corner. His hand reaches out into thin air to offer a ticket to a driver who is still two miles away.
The people around him edge away toward the gutter, convinced that Arthur is suffering through a high-velocity seizure or a very specific, frantic spiritual crisis. He cannot blame them for their fear. He looks exactly like a man who is haunted by the ghost of his own immediate future. Arthur is trapped in a cruel loop of questioning his own reality, screaming internally while the ticking of his internal clock shrieks at a frequency only he is cursed to hear. It is a jagged, lonely way to survive a day, and the universe shows no signs of slowing down to let him catch his breath.
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