“What do you do? What’s your thing?” asked a brave soul at a party, making a poor attempt to talk to me, by no fault of their own. I was properly baffled, unable to render even the slightest rebuttal. I’ve been barricading myself in the depths of the yellow stacks for the past five weeks straight, in a failing attempt to resurrect all of my plummeting grades. With 4 a.m. deadlines aplenty, sleep occurs only once the adrenaline wears off, near 6 a.m. I do awaken at an early hour of 3 post-meridian, yet refuse to emerge from the dim recesses of my dormitory for at least an additional two hours. I am nocturnal by necessity.
The only reason I was dragged to this unfortunately fraternal soiree was due to a very temporary lull in my examinations. This predicament allowed me to socialize at an hour which most would call late evening, yet I could only perceive it as 10 a.m. I quickly tired of the hot and loud environment, retreating to the cool outdoors. I’ve gotten a little too good at judging the time of night by the position of the moon in the sky. I am no longer bound by the earthly ties of the circadian rhythm. I am free, constantly finding myself trapped in the insanity of my own thoughts.
“What is this, what is time?” I asked myself. Time is nothing but a series of deadlines strung together. Time provides context for the struggles and strife of life. But time is nothing without a way of comprehending and processing it. Without thought, time is utterly meaningless. Time allows for learning and growth, but only when you have the mental bandwidth to do so. In the state of perpetual mental deep fry I exist, time is not real.
The sun is no more and I cannot think. The only way I can gauge how weeks have passed is by the phases of the moon. I cannot even rely on the most basic of weather patterns, as this current temperature could easily be confused with that of early September.
It is only reasonable to assume my fellow peers are experiencing a similar sense of confusion. It’s not anything of significance nor concern, as it does not impede my capacity to turn out mediocre course work. Time keeps ticking forward and I keep on keeping on, through the dim hours of the morning.
It’s oh-so dark out all the time and I’m not liking it. I sleep at odd hours in fits and spurts, and fewer hours of sunlight is not helping my situation. I must be suffering from vitamin deficiency at this point, as the dining halls provide dubious cuisine and I am certainly not getting any vitamin D. Flintstones gummies and caffeine shall be my only saviors during the darker days of this semester.
