It’s warm in bed, and the floorboards are cold. The radiator is clicking in the darkness. Morning is here but in name only or, rather, only if one follows clock time.

But should one? No, that question’s too far along and–too intellectual, too third-personal. Come back to me, this place, this moment of hesitation. Don’t point to obligations, plans, projects because they’re a long way off. None of that yet: now is night, and whether I want or care about the day–but this is too abstract still. This day! this one here! this one not long before me, this that’s coming into being without me but that seeks (or does it seek?) to include me–all this is another story, a much earlier one.

I think again of the floorboards and of my cracked heels. I’m not sure that, cocooning now, I’m luxuriating in the warmth and the clicking and the quietness as much as I’m recoiling from the question.

“Death! Death! Come off it, Andrew. Fuckin’ melodrama. Morbid intellectual bullshit. Philosophical claptrap. Hamlet vomit. ‘Oh, despair, despair. Oh, fear and loathing. Oh, lyrical elegy. Well, well, do I dare and do I dare?’ Get your ass out of bed, or don’t. I don’t fuckin’ care, but stop kvetching. P.S. A pox on you!”

A little applause, my friends, for that populist tirade. Well done, indeed. Note the skepticism, the sarcasm, the cynicism. All nice touches these. Just get on with it, he says? Fine, my friend, but why fucking bother? You’re the one who’s dodging the question. Free associate your way out of that one, and I’ll buy brunch.

* * *

I’m back on the floorboards: put my foot down? The line of questioning quickly spools out of control.

Why today?

Because you have things to do.

But are they worth doing?

Yes, they’re means to the ends you seek to achieve. If you want to be this kind of person and accomplish these sorts of life projects, then you need to do this today and that tomorrow. And so on and so forth.

But what if the kind of person I want to be isn’t worth being? And what if the things I want to achieve aren’t worth achieving?

Then it’s time to reflect on whether they are and if they’re not, then you’ll need to find ones that are. After examining yourself, you’ll either feel more certain that you’re on the right path, or you’ll have good reason to make some wholesale life changes. In short, you’ll know whether to stay on course or jump ship.

Point well something or other. But how do I know what kind of life is ultimately worth leading? Suppose no life in this sublunary realm is worth living. Maybe we’re all just wasting our lives. Maybe we’re all Prodigal Sons.

You’re alluding to our dear friend Silenus, aren’t you? And you’re worried that we’re all living a glass menagerie illusion? That we’re skirting the issue.

Yes, frock and all.

Hot. How about turning to God? I hear there’s a purpose-driven life out there for everyone. Care to join me?

Now you’re mocking me.

[Silence]

So, humor–that’s the saving grace? “God’s up in the air, / but humor’s everywhere.”

“And Beckett’s heavenly fare!” Now you’ve got it: not a madman, but Gilbert and Sullivan.