I had slept through my six thirty alarm for the third time in a single week.

My limbs felt like sacks of damp sand, heavy and unwilling to move beneath the cotton sheets.

Daniel sat in the armchair by the bay window, wearing his crisp white dress shirt and silk tie.

A small leather journal lay flat on his knee, and his silver pen moved quickly across the cream paper.

“What time is it?” I asked, my throat as dry as cardboard.

He snapped the small journal shut, catching the leather ribbon marker between the pages.