The day always hurts, stabbing in with lances through the window. The first feeble rays of the sun and the tinny scream of my alarm, setting the machine into motion.

Stumbling to the bathroom, the flick of a razor blade into the trash and the crisp unfolding of a new day's blade, cream and water mingling on my skin until long, slow slices restore me to what others need me to be. The wet gurgle of piss down the drain, sleep fading away like a lover who's left too soon, a phone laden with summons for the day ahead as I dress.

Trousers, boots, the familiar fold under two straps to keep things tucked away, a belt cinched tight around my hips and the same cloth as everyone else slipping over my shoulders. Four buttons, fingers dancing without a thought, to keep it all inside, and on comes the day.

Grinding, seeping, the life and light in my eyes dulling as reports trudge over my desk and an aching body strains in the heat, never showing the weakness and weariness I feel inside by the end of the day. Always the same, with details shuffled between days and faces shifting through an endless parade before me, always more and now and again, voices snapping and grating. Every effort chained to the service of a machine whose outputs are so far away, my efforts muted before the monolith.

It's dawn when I awake, some dim perversion of day and night, and it's dusk when I finally leave the grind behind, headlights glimmering in the dark as I make my way back to life.

In the darkness, words flow from my fingers and dreams fill my mind. A better life, an escape, an adventure waiting on the long road. There and back again, faces that stay and laugh, blue eyes bright with laughter and amusement, not the mud-choked brown the mirror sends dully back. A world where the air smells sweeter, where my body hums with life and sweat drips from my brow, action met with gasps or the ring of metal. Anything but the trudge to work, the same trail trod just to keep my own machine running, the hiss of paper and the detachment of a thousand orders.

Adventure is out there, in the world beyond my own, sometimes so close that the chains of the long parade of days seem to loosen. I can peer, for a moment, into another life, fingers skimming over the surface so near that I can almost feel the grip of something better. For a moment, in the dark, silhouetted in the glow of a screen, I'm free, off on a journey with a smile on my face, the stars shining outside my window shining down on some kinder land.

My mind dulls, dragged down from the day, and my body groans to a halt, and the moment passes, back into the shallow sleep, pulled by the silent whine of tomorrow's repetition. Soon the light will hit again, searing out the mystery and the romance in my soul, and another day will slide past into nothing.

But in the starlight, adventure shines behind my eyes.