My eyes opened. It was a new day. Or was it? Ever since the age of seventeen I had awoken feeling more tired than the moment at which I had fallen asleep. That was a long stretch of time to wake up feeling knackered. Indeed, forty-seven years had passed since I could truly relate to the sensation of feeling fresh-faced.

I rolled over onto my aching back. Why had I insisted on trying to play Sisyphus with a bag of giant potatoes yesterday?

Better get up, I thought. Then, I said it.

“Better get up.”

But why? I hesitated under the covers. No one was waiting on me. Yes, I was expected in work, but they didn’t need me. That was clear ever since they decided to reassign me to the Pigeon. I still didn’t know what the Pigeon was. I feared it was an excuse to call me ‘Pigeon Man’, and they did, regularly. Whatever the Pigeon was, my being assigned to it betrayed a stunning lack of respect for me within the institution. They regarded me like a machine approaching obsolescence. Did they not realise that God builds obsolescence into us all?

My eyes were fighting to stay open. What was my resting heart rate? Forty, according to my wizard watch. I was built to rest. Truly, I disagreed with the underlying principle of Monday morning – a capitalist construction if ever there was one. Why couldn’t it be Saturday? Then, staring into the ceiling, I remembered an empowering book I’d recently read. It told me to reframe everything until I felt that I was in control of my life.

“I am in control of my life,” I whispered to myself.

It was the epiphany I’d been waiting for.

I pulled the covers up close to my chin and went back to sleep, thankful that it was Saturday.