I’m sitting here in the Neo restaurant in the Admin Block (that used to be the old Nurses’ Home) drinking my second coffee of the day and hoping that it will do the trick. (This is a true story by the way and not something that I made up just to pass the time.) I feel that I really need this coffee. It feels like an actual dependency in fact. I’m like a junkie getting his fix, waiting for it to take effect. Waiting for the rush, waiting for the hit so I can be ready for the day. Without my fix I’m nothing, I’m nobody. I’m overdoing it here maybe. I’m laying it on a bit too thick perhaps, but you know what I mean. You get the picture. But the point of this story (such as it is) is that I am not getting the effect I am waiting for. I’m sitting here feeling every bit as bad as I did half an hour ago. I’m feeling every bit as bad as I did when I got out of bed an hour and a half ago and started my weary commute to work. You know that feeling when you wake up feeling every bit as tired as when you went to bed and you’re telling yourself that you’re going to start feeling better any minute now. Just give it another ten minutes. Just give it another half hour. Just one more cup of coffee and you’ll be fine. You’re telling yourself all this but it’s just not happening. It’s not happening at all. You’re a sitting duck. You’re a dead duck – you’re dead in the water because it’s just not happening for you. If anything happened you just wouldn’t be able to cope; if anyone walked up and said something to you wouldn’t know what to say. You’d just stare at them blankly. No words would come. That’s how bad it is! As I’m sure you know, there’s nothing as disconcerting as this feeling – you’re waiting for something to happen and it never does. You’re waiting to feel normal but you never do. It’s just not happening. So what are you supposed to do? You keep on pressing the button you always press but there’s nothing – just a bit of an empty click. You keep on pressing it because that’s all you know how to do. You’re pressing it like a moron. You’re a one trick pony and the trick just isn’t working any more. I suppose what I’m talking about here is panic – sheer bloody panic. I am caught and I don’t know what to do. My brain is in overdrive trying to thinking of a way out, trying to think of how I can scam it. How to dodge whatever challenges come my way. How to survive until it is time to go home again. How to duck and dive. Like I say, this is a true story. It really happened. I’m not making this up. That was my day. It’s fucked up but it’s true. That’s how it is…