Their fingers twitch, ache and stumble across the keyboard. Struggling to get out a word of what has to be done. This has to be done. They think, while waking with the early morning sun. As they stumble out of bed, only to sit in an old, covered in dog-hair office chair. Monitors come to life around them and they stumble into the work they have to do. This has to be done. They think as they wake each morning, exhaustion long since settled in their bones. They used to think they couldn't function off of little sleep, now they know all it takes is an extra cup of caffeine or two.
They take a moment to breathe, rest their eyes from the monitor lights, even with everything as dark as it can possibly be, it's still too bright. So they close them, let their mind wander and their fingers start to itch. They crave for something they cannot yet have, they wish for something that's at the bottom of the to do list. Still they ache and the mind wanders and thinks about everything but the black hole of stress and anxiety at the center of their universe. The only thing keeping it afloat is the countdown. At the same time, each day the number goes down, well the anxiety goes up tenfold.
In moments of weakness, when they can't take it anymore, they delve into the past. A past that never happened, a past where as they are right now they went back and had all the time in the world once again. It's just another dream, a dream that usually causes more pain once faced with the reality at hand. One where they wished they learned to do differently to fix their mistakes, while at the same time running from the mistakes they're making now.
Still their fingers convulse and grasp at something they could create, a fantasy, a dream that they could look in on. Even if it's only for a little while. A way to let out all the regrets of time not spent, of decisions made safely and logically, of times where the consequences were much smaller than you believed. A place where you can hide away the child in your soul, while the adult chaperones. Not to make it safe, but to make it fun.
