i can't remember my name

Eating: what I've been doing other than copping out articles in my nightshift writing job. Eating. I move my pursed lips right, left, my tongue inside thick with the aftertaste of coffee. Oreo cookies, coffee candies, strawberry-filled small bready things, my packed pre-midnight meal, chocolate thingies with a peanut-butter core, my post-midnight packed meal. As I reach for them absent-mindedly, they have no names; all destined to be consumed. The Starbucks one elevator trip down has lost its appeal. My friends are not online on a weekday dawn like this. I feel fidgety and the keyboard on this PC is like a crusty old man: unbending, resistant to speed-typing, cramps when you least expect it. So I end up poking the keys hard at times, which tires out my hands; I watch words stream in all capitals on the screen, even when I only pressed Shift once. I am bringing my own keyboard next time.

Day five of my first week in this job. I've just finished the first batch of articles. I have two more batches just in. If I don't speed up and get used to things, I'm leaving by next week. No point in wasting the boss-dude's time. I might not just be for this article speed-manufacturing business. I notice too much the flaws in the essays, and I try to improve them, which can be time-consuming. If this gig doesn't workout, I'm on to that demo teaching appointment in June. Better to mess up college children's minds than to disappoint the boss-dude who seems to like my writing, but if only I could write faster.

I stretch my arms, rub my shoulders, twist my waist. I don't yawn, my need to pass out and lie down is greater, but I can't. Back aches and I miss my sofa bed at home. I tend to rest my back by lying down face first. In this old office, I am using someone else's PC, someone else's desktop settings, and I have to change everything just so I can feel at home. I installed fonts, changed the wallpaper, the menu colors, the shortcuts to programs I use, and save all these as my own settings, overriding the previous one, which I had also saved. I feel like working on borrowed time, in a borrowed place, on a borrowed PC, with an article quota I am only beginning to meet.

I have to become a machine: I've never worked-horse like this before.