I woke up to the smell of Windex and burnt bread rushing through my nose. It was dark, with only the light of my mere book light to comfort me.

I fell asleep in the diner again. I remembered groggily as I pushed an old mop off my lap.

I took myself to a kneel and brushed off, picking the overturned book that I had been reading off the ground. “Ghostwritten”. It was an interesting story, yet I was still lulled to sleep by drowsiness and stress caused by the previous night. I reached for the pullcord, and clicked on the light. I was in the janitor’s closet, my only sanctuary from a life of problems. With the door locked and a book in my hand, the world seemed to disappear.

Lovely, I thought, did I even work yesterday?

I’ve been working at