The Dark Roast

“Someone turn off that stupid spotlight,” I yelled in my foggy rage. “Jesus, could that really be the time?” I wondered. I felt like I had just laid down. “I guess I better get moving.”

I stumbled to the bathroom and started a shower. I stood, lifeless under the water, hoping for some glimmer of resuscitation. When that didn’t work, I knew I’d have to make some coffee before leaving the house, even though I was already running late. The second there was enough to fill my favorite travel mug, I ran out the door.

Halfway to the car, I ran back inside to find my car keys. I checked all the typical landing spots with no luck, before finally finding them in my pocket. “God help me,” I muttered. Finally, I backed out of the driveway and sped off down the road.

As I weaved through traffic waiting for my coffee to cool to a reasonable temperature, I wondered if Superman ever felt that way in the morning. I tried the coffee, but it was still too hot. “Probably not,” I guessed. I unscrewed the lid, so I could blow on my coffee and realized I had missed my exit about a mile back. Swearing loudly and creatively, I spun an extraordinary U-turn and then burned my entire mouth when I took a careless and irresponsible draw from my travel mug. “This day is garbage,” I decided.

When I finally reached the scene, I was beginning to feel a bit better. Unfortunately, the robbery was long-since completed and the perpetrators made their getaway over a half-an-hour before I arrived. I ignored the scathing onslaught from the commissioner and jumped back in the car to begin my feverish pursuit. Several red lights, a railroad crossing, multiple wrong turns, and a symphony of obscenities later, I finally caught up with the suspects.

I fought my way to the leader, had him trapped in an alley and was ready to restrain him and take him in, when I realized I had left my utility belt in my living room. “Cripes,” I cried out. After tying him up with random garbage from the dumpster, I explained that his luck had run out and he’d be going to prison for a very long time. When I asked where he had hidden the money, he began a sinister laugh. Not in the manner of an evil comic book villain, but in a strange, off-putting way that broke me into a nightmarish lucidity.

I began to survey the scene around me, shaking my head in disbelief and trying to make some sense of what I had done. The sobering reality was that I had confused the crime with another from earlier in the week. The worst of it was that I had just “fought” my way through a crowd of hostages, injuring nearly every person I had been called to save, women and children included.

I decided right then to stop staying up so late and to get more sleep. I had gotten into the habit of telling myself I’d watch only one episode of The Great British Baking Show, but I’d inevitably get drawn in and end up staying up half the night. I miss having that extra “me time", but I just can’t do it like I could when I was younger.

• Written for “Batman is Tired”