The Dust on the Monitor Screen

Dear Delyara, It’s 3:35 AM, and a thick layer of industrial dust has settled over the glass face of the main CCTV monitor stack, catching the amber glow from the yard lights. When I look at the screen, the static silhouettes of the parked trailers look blurred, almost like charcoal drawings on rough paper. I tried to wipe a section clean with a damp tissue, but it only left a grey, oily smudge across the display. It feels like a metaphor for how my brain operates at this hour—everything gets slightly distorted by the sheer volume of hours I’m putting in. The lines between my daylight business meetings and these midnight patrols are beginning to smudge together into one long, continuous test of endurance. I leaned back in the plastic chair, letting my eyes track the grainy feed, waiting for the sky to change.