The fire inside

Early morning, or that is what the watch says. I am up a few hours earlier than usual. As my eyes try to focus on the outside of the window, I realise that it is still dark. Pitch dark. Traces of amber from outside stream into my eyesight. And the outside starts to form. It slowly takes shape into the familiar. Into what I saw last night, before I went to sleep. There is nothing new about it. As usual.

I go through my daily rituals with mechanical preciseness. The razor is sharp and unforgiving. One miss, and the blood appears and slowly spreads. The sting of a good after shave. Not numbing, no pleasure-in-the-pain. But a sting. A plain, simple, bee sting. Eyes close tight to make the pain disappear. Creating crow feet that tug at the ears. The pressure builds up and fades into the sting. It lingers for a few minutes.

One flick and the newspaper is in my hands. Forgotten heroes in the middle, the nouveau don the outside covers. The words eat into each other. Some headlines expected, some not. Some shocking, some trying to be but can't. Each one evaluated, before giving the rest of the story a miss. One headline passes by the other, like small towns on a long drive. The details are the rest of the journey. Like signposts waiting to be read, the rest to be experienced. It all sinks in.

Pitter patter. It's drizzling outside. The rain falls in slow motion before dawn. Have you ever noticed that? Drops hit the puddles on the ground, and then dissolve into them. Shoes make their way across the puddle. Giving them a new shape with each step. Spread contract spread contract. Ripples follow. But too small to be noticed. What is left behind, stays behind.

Droplets on the window play tricks with the night lights, as they prism their way through. Towards me. Greens, ambers and reds whizz by. Everydays are coming back to me. Slowly. Some drops trace their way towards what they are leaving behind, as the pace gets too much for them. Others hold their ground with resolve. The patterns created by this dance and movement mesmerize into a recipe for perfectly pointless philosophy.

The battered remains of yesterday have dissolved. Today is a new day. A new drama. And it starts unfolding this precise moment.

I feel it burn inside of me, sometimes. Sometimes it is mellow, sometimes it rages.

Real life approaches.