the midnight schulich to nowhere

The trouble with working late is you lose your sense of time--and, as a consequence, the ability to budget it effectively.

Just as we should be anxious to finish and break free, home begins to seem a further and further prospect as sleeplessness and silence dull the knife-gleam focus we brought with us: for it is warm in the sleepy belly of this old hall, and the night is cold and the walk is long--perhaps I might just stay a little longer?

It begins to seem like infinite time is available--like we, the strange passengers on this slow train, are not here to accomplish goals, according to the logic of the day, but only to pass these strange hours, waiting, always waiting, for the moment when we will all arrive...

Later, an elegant solution: I run out of pencil lead.