she wakes to the sound of another day, blue and white and swarming with dust and apathy. bombs dropping on the other side of the world and the ticking of the everyday in her little pocket of the universe. she picks up the newspaper off the doormat and glances at the khaki photographs, the headlines in heavy bold black proclaiming the latest, which is the same as yesterday's, which was the same as the day's before: "we know nothing! but we want you to be afraid!" it seems safer to read the lifestyle supplements, so she sits down with her breakfast and reads about bottling tomatoes, although even that seems like too much effort. she goes to work where the everyday continues to tick, above a bus interchange and beside a chinese acupuncturist. she watches people crossing the park, old women from the housing developments limping slowly along the paths with their canvas shopping trolleys, young kids skiving off school in their plasticky tracksuits, someone late for work in a suit, eating something unnourishing and disposable in place of breakfast. the park grows at a slower rate than these people traversing its surface; it cares not for war or buses or tomatoes. it opens up under the sun, stretching languidly and assuming today will be much the same as yesterday, just like the headlines. she doesn't want to be in the park, but is grateful for the flashes of green in her peripheral vision as she eats her lunch at her desk. she leaves as soon as she is able and drives home along choked industrial roads, squeezed in between trucks and semi trailers and hoping they notice her when it's time to change lanes. the radio spews out trivial froth, the announcers doing their best to sound upbeat and nonchalant while wishing war victims well and introducing the next song. skipping from station to station she starts to feel like her multiple personalities are coming out to play, so she switches off the radio and drives in the relative silence of car engines and white noise. she cooks a tasty meal when she gets home and watches the news despite her better judgement. it washes over her in wave upon wave of hyperbole and dumbed-down rhetoric until she just focuses on what the newsreader is wearing and thinks how attractive blue is on some people. in between promises of up-to-the-minute news and flashes of unpalatable and unconvincing seriousness, regular programming resumes and she finds herself slumped in her chair, hours later, with hardly any memory of what she has watched, but suspecting it was not worth the investment of time. she switches off the television and loses another hour or two to the internet until it is a respectable time to admit defeat and go to bed. she lies awake in the dark, imagining footsteps in the hallway, until sleep curls its fingers around her face and pushes her into a dreamless slumber.