Day 22

Ooof this one is rough.
You grab the shovel and go to dig.
But no matter where you strike, there's just a sharp tang, signifying an impenetrable bedrock.
It's never mocking, despite it's repetition.
This sound isn't that akin to cruel laughter of adversarial mischief. There's no offender or defender to the rich clay beneath this unbreakable surface.
It just is.
And you can't break it.
But you keep striking and striking and striking and striking and at a certain point you realize you've lost so much daylight, you skipped right over dusk all the way to dawn.
You can't feel your arms. Your too hungry to feed yourself.
You might as well have been throwing your body at the ground this whole time, for all the effort you've wasted.
Should've slept. Should've eaten. Should've. Didn't.
Let the inevitable fallout, when you're crawling through the day tomorrow, all through one bloodshot eye, be a pleasant reminder of your miscalculation.
It's not always about the shovel, it's not always about your determination. Sometimes you just hit rock.
When that happens, move on. Move away. Move. You do no favors tiring yourself out...
and there's the early sounds that predict the coming day.
And it is coming, whether you agree or not.
The first train whistle, followed by the growing crescendo of the building locomotion.
Carrying the last gasps of night away.
The streets, once abandoned, now slowly sprout up into life.
And then there's you. Praying at your makeshift altar to the god best intentions to beg that it ain't so.
Let this be the night, let it be the time when I look for a sign that my prayers aren't just noise being shouted out into endless nothing ...
Tonight you do not turn heretic. But still, time will not wait for you. That train is already out of the station.
So you drop your shovel where it is and make your way to an all too brief sleep.
Tomorrows toiler will curse the you of today.
Let him.
He needs something to be angry with.
Better you than him.
Sleep now. Hope to dream. Curse later.