Suddenly, he was awake. Glistening with sweat, Duncan for a moment could not remember what day it was. He had that heavy melatonin slog, when you sleep too long. It took him a second even to remember his quite vivid dreams, simultaneously realizing, it was Wednesday, the start of his weekend. No work today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dreams were a mish mash, out of order. He was a college professor trying to give a lecture on identity politics or something, but the lecture hall was filled with fish, flopping around in the seats… But also, this intense feeling of being in some dark, dank cave-like room, nothing at all, void but also aliens in white lab coats prodded him with instruments…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Duncan hated nightmares, and these both had that feeling to them. He shuddered and sat up in bed, grasping for a mug of cold stale coffee to cover the stench of his breath and orient to the here and now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even as he realized, this was his flat, his familiar bedroom, he had such a powerful feeling of existing in some novel form. As if he had just been born. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He padded into the bathroom, stroking his stubble. Gazed into his puffy eyes. Why do I feel like absolute shit if I’ve been sleeping… <\/em>he glanced at the clock in the living room. Jesus. 11 hours? <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was half past morning in America, he thought muddily. And while I could take the day to get some things done at home, maybe get some more rest… He had to … Had to…<\/p>\n\n\n\n The phone rang. A wall phone<\/em>, he thought. As opposed to what?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The caller ID flashed the number for the paper’s editorial office. It would be Eaton, his boss, wanting to know god knows what. He let it ring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Time slowed to a crawl. Nothing happening<\/em>, he thought. He felt groggy, and plopped into a chair in the kitchen, trying to order his rusty thoughts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How the FUCK can I edit anything today? His last semi-coherent thought as he slipped back into a deep sleep: Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1999…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many misconceptions about the role of the editor. Many thing it is simply like their classroom teachers, marking up their essays with red ink, instructing and chastising misuse of expressions. But editors are not mere wordsmiths, nor are they teachers or senior writers. They are ultimately responsible for crafting the narrative, tailoring it to suit the finely threaded web… <\/p>\n\n\n\n Web… Digital is eating away at print…<\/p>\n\n\n\n Duncan had been at the paper what, 4 years now? It felt like a lifetime in some ways. He was well regarded by some for his passion and willingness to fight management over how they were selling the stories, as opposed to selling copies. Others thought his gonzo style reflected a mad, flagrant disregard for the decorum and gravity of the city’s most widely distributed daily journal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He could hardly care less what anyone thought, he told himself often. The stories should tell themselves. Duncan considered himself almost a curator at some future museum of the news of the day, simply arranging events as they were, no more, no less. It is fair to say, Duncan held a wide range of incorrect beliefs, which in no way impeded his ability to be the senior editor for the Lifestyle, Metro, and Crime divisions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He was also, it should be pointed out, a terrible writer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At any rate, time and again, Duncan found himself walking that tightrope. Teetering, dancing, waving his arms to avoid falling into the bottomless pit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Duncan suddenly shook awake. The light in the room was much softer, and yellow. He was drooling onto the grey T-shirt he had slept in since the previous night. Groggily, he wandered into the bathroom to get his meds from the cabinet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This was going to be a long night. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Suddenly, he was awake. Glistening with sweat, Duncan for a moment could not remember what day it was. He had that heavy melatonin slog, when you sleep too long. It took him a second even to remember his quite vivid dreams, simultaneously realizing, it was Wednesday, the start of his weekend. No work today. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasboy11.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasboy11.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasboy11.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasboy11.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasboy11.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasboy11.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"https:\/\/jasboy11.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasboy11.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasboy11.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasboy11.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
He fell into a dissociative stupor, late morning sunbeams highlighted by dust drifting through the room, and forgot, for the time being, about his tortured past and the dreams, remnants of another lifetime, passed away quietly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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