Midnight seems no closer to me as the seconds keep tempo to throbbing in my temple. Cigarettes, coffee, and much less the aspirin, do neigh to calm the beating so I resolve to sit in the dark staring at the ceiling until it does. Maybe the advancement of the date will stop it. Maybe it will do nothing.

Truth be told, in the three hundred and sixty five days that have past, we have found ourselves much better off than I could have imagined. Even with the ever present cloud of discontent and discord churning like muddy water within me, but that is the state that I live in. That I expect to live in. Today, I can breathe, and know there is going to be a tomorrow, in a way I couldn't then. Even in the painfully indulgent, there is an existent.

11:30 now. Two hours have passed in thoughtless contemplation. I hold another cigarette to my lips and flick my lighter to disturb the darkness. Almost there.

So now no ticking should hold me and I should celebrate that time. The time before and the time that lies ahead. Nothing is what it seems and all that lives is in my head. The last and present are all accounted for.

There's only us.

Destroy Once Done