When you first put a tea bag into hot boiling water, it clouds and the amber color swirls out to overtake the contents of the cup. Of course, I usually wait too long for it to cool, so when I start drinking it’s lukewarm—one of the most repugnant temperatures. As I lean back, words spring up from the newspaper telling me what to think about, what’s important in the world right now. I only take slight interest in these because there is nothing else to do, alone in this stale apartment at 6am.

I don’t know when I started getting up so early. Sleep seems like such a luxury as I have beginning to partake in this activity less and less. Sometimes I really try but get distracted by the swirls of five year old stucco on the ceiling. Or the sounds of the breaks of cars outside my window screeching into my ears. Its not that I was worried or anxious and could not sleep, but more like I was sick of sleeping. I was tired of sleep, which doesn’t make much sense at all.

I looked down at my now empty cup with a engorged tea bag trying to hold what little water it could. I set the newspaper aside, bored with black ink characters yelling at me about how bad the world was, is, or will be. I stared down at the pathetic tea bag, its bottom bulging with speckled colors of caramel brown . There was a thin white foam near the top that the hot water had created but now only rests until it will soon disappear. I picked up the tea bag by its thin string and watched it spin in circles, wobbling slightly back and forth. People’s footsteps, the sound of cars honking, began to sound outside my window and my door. I hadn’t realized I had been staring at the tea bag for almost an hour. The day was beginning, people were busying themselves with times and cycles. I didn’t care. To me, the most complex thing was the movement of this tea bag, dripping small bits of water every now and then. But it wasn’t water then was it? It was tea, right?