She laid on her back, textbook open on her stomach, tracing the patterns on the ceiling with her abnormally long pointer finger. All her fingers were long. She examined them now. Her nail polish was old and chipped. It was once a vibrant pink (for spring), but now it was dull and lifeless. Just like she felt dull and lifeless.
She tried to roll over onto her side but her textbook got in the way. She pushed it away and, in doing so, lost her page. Oh well.
Her bed was infinitely more comfortable whenever she had work to do. The clock read 3:17 a.m. She had to be awake in three hours. Three hours and thirteen minutes.
She sat up reluctantly and flipped through the textbook. The pages were crumpled. This made her want to cry, for some reason.
She hated this textbook. It didn’t have enough pictures and the font was too small. She had to squint sometimes. She missed the books that had pictures on every page. And she missed the books with fonts big enough to read without squinting. She missed books.
She missed being able to sit in bed with an enjoyable book and a cup of tea. She missed enjoyable books.
She sat the same way now, with the textbook propped open on her knees. 3:21. Except it wasn’t the same. She was all out of tea, for one, and the book wasn’t enjoyable. And she felt cluttered with all the papers on her bed.
She finished a chapter. 3:38. But then she realized she hadn’t read anything at all. She was thinking about Harry Potter instead of causes of the Civil War.
She missed Harry Potter. She missed when books were enjoyable.
She went back and read the whole chapter again. 3:59. This time she really read it. And it made sense. It was interesting but not enjoyable.
She had told herself the night before that she would go to bed early the next day. 4:00. She laughed. Deciding that she knew as much about American history now than she ever would, much less by tomorrow morning, she pushed everything off her bed and fell asleep instantly.
She had forgotten to set her alarm and woke up twenty-one minutes late. 6:51. That was alright; she would just skip breakfast.
When she got home that afternoon she didn’t remember the test at all. She didn’t want to remember the test. She didn’t want to think about American history ever again. She felt like relaxing, so she positioned herself in front of the television and turned it on. As she watched, she thought about how much she missed enjoyable books. She wished she could read more enjoyable books, but she simply didn’t have the time anymore. She picked up the remote and changed the channel. Nothing good was on, so she watched Inception for the eighth time. It’s a classic, she told herself. As she watched, the list of enjoyable books she had yet to enjoy stayed impossibly long.
She stayed up late again, but this time for fun. It was a Friday anyway. She could sleep in the next day.
She sat in bed with her laptop positioned precariously on her knees, with fourteen tabs open. She sat like this for a very long time. Once in a while, she laughed.
At 3:30 a.m. exactly, she put her laptop away. She looked at her clock, wondering where the time had gone. She wished she had more time—to read enjoyable books.
On Saturday she went out. She slept in like she had planned to and had fun like she had planned to. She had a few hours to spare at the end of the day, so she went to the movies. After dinner, she was bored, so she got on her laptop again. At 1:00 a.m., she put it away. Sighing, she fell back into bed, telling herself that one day when she was retired and had lots of time that she would read every enjoyable book she could possibly enjoy. She was far too busy now.