It is 6:45 in the morning. My alarm goes off. I ignore it. It is persistent; it rings again, and again. When my arm finally emerges from under my blanket to silence it, it feels as if my world has been shorn asunder. I am like a baby that has been brought rudely into this world, torn from the sleepy confines of its mother’s womb and into the loud and too bright world. The baby is slapped, its introduction into the mass of humanity is unpleasant…
