The sun fell down in slices through the blind shutters and pried open my eyelids like the two halves of a walnut.I wish I had closed that blind.I wish Marnie had closed that blind.I wish whoever built this apartment all of those years ago with its stocky uneven floors,spitting drywall and doors imprisoned in lichen had never installed that window.Pain rattles through my skull as I stretch a greedy finger out for my phone,the same phone I told myself I was going to stop checking the other day.Mind you I also said I was going to stop drinking the other day too and I had a suspicion that hadn’t worked out for me either.Rolling around as much as I can to dodge the sun’s fierce rods on my bare bed,I lift the phone above my head and check the time.14:12.Fuck.I’ve always been so disappointed in myself for waking up late.As a child I would wake up at 5:00 on the dot each day (and I still have no idea how) I would creep behind the tallest and broadest white door at the end of the corridor and let myself in,quiet as I could.I would tiptoe,tiptoe,tiptoe on eager footsteps,like some kind of elvish trickster until I could feel my mother’s blanket soft breath stroke the freckles of my cheek.After that,no matter how certain I was that she was asleep,it would only take a matter of seconds for her to smile at me,thoughtfully and dream-entranced.Then her eyes would open and stare at me,the pupils forming heart shaped blobs under her bedside lamp and glowing with whitish glints like pinprick stars against the crumpled black paper of a night sky.My phone beeps in my hand and I almost drop it flat on my face.It’s a notification from Uber asking me to rate them.Honestly,I would but looking at the beacon of green on the notification bar makes me want to throw up.Turning down the brightness I notice that my phone is on 3% the way that it always is when it’s just died and is playing hide and seek with all of my messages.I switch it off,knowing that when I next open WhatsApp the messages will burst through like a dam spilling saltwater into a river