Monday, 27 May 2002 | Accomplishment

Last night was split in half and was therefore unusually long. After getting home from a cookout that survived past midnight, I collapsed on the bed, promising myself only two minutes of sleep before getting up so that I could lie back down again, half-blind and with fresh breath. I don't know why I still believe the two-minute lie; perhaps I just want to believe it. I imagine that when I go to sleep for "two minutes," the hands on the clock circle hurriedly, like they do in the movies to indicate elapsed time. The clock said 4:50 when I woke up, and my eyes were angry and red.

After three hours of procrastination, it only took five minutes before the room was dark and I was under the covers. A minute later I was up again, grabbing the empty glass by my head and feeling my way through the dark to fill it up with water in the bathroom sink. Light on with my right hand, glass in my left, I saw a blurry roach making its way over the rim of my glass. Without thinking, I threw the glass into the porcelain basin and watched as it broke apart, as the little brown body climbed over the newly jagged shape, unharmed. I finished him off with water.

I would've believed it had been a dream, had I not seen the evidence this morning, the sink filled with the clear peaks and shards of my irrational accomplishment.