Most of the time fatigue creeps, other times it gathers force and thunders down like an avalanche. For however long it takes you are stupefied by tiredness and excruciating pain, the worst of sensation galvanised and prowling, head to toe, skin to bone. Cheek by jowl with a sagging sky you barely budge, but a wild force rises – if only you could seize it, harness its savage energies for daring and desire. You know to focus on your breathing, which takes great industry: respiration is fibrous, as if air were pulled from lungs by thickening cords and drawn back in as a last resort.
It passes. You wait to write, comb the lamellae of cognition for imagery and riveting rendition. Words are like battered buttons with shreds of fabric still attached. You touch a few. You sniff in corners. You listen to the news.