Night Shift

Dear Delyara, I came home this morning after a long night shift and stood in the kitchen staring at the toaster like I had never seen one before. I was hungry, but I was too tired to decide whether I wanted toast, eggs, or just sleep. That is the kind of tiredness I don’t think people understand unless they live it. It is not dramatic. It just makes every small thing feel unnecessarily complicated. I made tea, forgot about it, made another tea, and finally sat down at the table while the house was still quiet. I should have gone straight to bed, but sometimes after work I need a few minutes where no one wants anything from me and I am not answering to a radio, a manager, a customer, or a problem. I just want to feel like a person before I become unconscious. By the time I got upstairs, the sky was too bright already. I lay in bed thinking about how strange it is to spend your life working so hard and still feel like rest comes to you in scraps.