It begins as a small milkweed at the base of the cerebellum, at that first light, and by noon it has grown teeth-tendrils into your core and pinned stars on the insides of your eyelids; when you press them closed and ease them back into your head, you watch meteor showers.

Around three it has all but twine-tied your curvatures of muted grey tissue, with gaudy bows that make fluorescent lights all the brighter, and until six, they squeeze and squeeze and tighten round your wrapped head; it becomes hard to see, harder even to breathe.

From six-thirty to ten, you are brow-furrowed and burdened by this snaky invader, until, at ten, it withdraws and takes you to the floor.