What I do all day

In fear of interrupting the snore of my roommate and in avoidance of clichés, I whisper to no one the number of pot-bellied pigs crossing the street. I drink some water. I caress the cover of Mankiw’s “Principles of Economics, Kindle Edition.” I slow-read its chapter on globalizing forces that leaves me questions on the GPA of your politicians. I gulp down a bleached caplet that promises to suppress stomach riots. I venture out the room to turn off the corridor light.

I drift to the kitchen, armed with a Tasty recipe with 3574 likes. I cherry-pick the brownest egg from the dozen of grade-A-jumbo-non-organic bargains from Family Dollars. I spin it and will my body to take its lackluster rotation as an inspiration. Since my body fails to submit, I crack the shell instead. I slap together my very first French toast dipped in caramel and mustard. On second thought, I fix another for Fiona and leave it on the counter. On third thought, I consume both and hand-write an apology card, explaining that I am better at judging than cooking my colonizers’ food.

On the way back, I subtract three and a sixth from seven to find the amount of time I have to disable Fiona’s alarm, a loop of twenty seconds of “Moves Like Jagger.”

Instead, I turn off my own alarm. Already on the phone, I gleefully bypass the Times’ paywall by reading it in incognito mode. I thumb-type a three-inch furious Facebook commentary on the legal obstacle course foreign workers leap through to come here. I hit refresh five times. I delete the post and ask Siri to schedule reposting at noon. I still send it to my ex anyway.

Tip-toeing to bed, I google the time of sunrise to solve the mystery of my dark window. I close my eyes.

I surrender to Adam Levine’s subjugation of my auditory nerve fifty-four seconds later. I listen to the world’s awakening as my eyelids glare back at me. I mumble, “Five more minutes,” and “Morning,” and “Yup I’ve seen the news,” and wave goodbye and lie very very still.

In the comfort of my visual cortex theater, I watch a giant citrus fruit doodling your country with gold flakes and red dust. In response, I scrub marble floors and wipe frosted windows and cement glass ceilings and ask everyone to come together and march for the freedom of your society in the protection of our bubbles and I-

I am jolted alive by the call from Pakistan. I kiss him goodbye and melt into my pillow, this time really sleeping.