Excerpt: reMINDer

(from Chapter 1: Bureaucrat)

Some days I don’t wake up. That’s because I haven’t been sleeping in the first place. I don’t do this on purpose. It’s nothing I chose. It just happens.
Today the alarm clock stirs me from a daze. I have been spaced out for hours, probably just staring at the wall or at the carpet. I remember thinking nothing.
Rubbing my eyes that feel like hot lead marbles in my numb, cotton-stuffed skull, I crawl up from the sofa and try to stretch. The muscles in my back scream in unison. The brightness of the light blares at me, deafeningly. The ceiling is very low today. Any moment now it will inch closer still, crushing me a little bit more. That’s why I don’t stand up straight.
I pick up my cup from the coffee table. There’s still some cold coffee in it, so I drain it, grimacing at the taste, while I pad over to the coffee maker that’s wheezing away on the kitchen counter. I pour myself a refill. No need to even rinse out the cup. The coffee’s black, anyway. With nothing to feed on, not even mould can grow.