My chin slips down to bop against the seam of my shoulder at the base of my neck, ruefully remembering some of the nicer things that got it this stretched out, but for now it makes me feel like a discarded doll, something fashionable and fine and supported, but ultimately something loosely rigged not yet ready to run. 

The word 'rigged' dances in the haze of my tired thoughts, the fog of thought blending with the clinging moistness of the day outisde to create something especially damply clingy.  

It's 10:46, now.

The time feels sort of - caught in my throat, wrapped around me like a naughty dog's leash tied to off to a post. The time is there, inevitable, second by second, slow and methodically ticking down with each breath and blink, each little jolt of , altering energy to try to look at the page. 

There's nothing due, there's nothing pressing, there's no boss breathing down her neck - 

A little reflexive warm shiver runs through her back at the thought, and a sheepish snort slips out of my nose. 

It's 10:46, still, the just barely pixelated counter on the bottom corner of the screen refusing to tick over as the feeling nags at me, tapping my attention back up just enough to see it, and to stare. 

Eleven o'clock looms above, like the grey-grumpy clouds I know are actually above. But it's still limpetly latched onto me. 

My fingers twitch, the keyboard numb, the proprioceptive mush of warmth and engagement and the tickly tender feeling of the barest bits of progress being milked from the stone on quiet keypress at a time. 

It's 10:50, now. 

Time is bleeding, the oddness of the focus etching itself down to the bone of my forearms, the feeling of my breath caught in my throat ready to release, but there's no button, no macro, that lets it release. 

Time pours down my pallid neck like the oh-too-present tension lines. 

It's 10:55, and that makes the stale-time-air taste a little sweeter.

There's a certain jittery excitement now, a flutter in my chest despite how statue-still-stuck it feels. My teeth glide along my too dry lips, soft and peach-sweet but salty, too, crinkled enough in places to feel how much they're a thin foilesque wrap around something raw. I take a drink from an oily thing of water - long since abandoned, now reunited with it's other half.

My eyes aren't even really focused and watching now, but my fingers are dancing, dipping down and tracing along the edges of the keys, clacking just enough to remind me that the world isn't playing in mute. They run, little rivers of ache tracing down my cheeks as scouts for the tears from the strain on my eyes. 

It's 10:58, and my throat burns with the groan and grumbles that I can't let out, not yet, not when there's a chance to be brave. 

...It's 11, and I'm free. There's a faint smile on my lips, a breath trailing down my lips and sinking into my chest alike, bright and light. There's a story, here, something striking and firm and me and meaningful, and just a little more to do to finish it all, now that it's all over. 

I rub my fingertips along my forehead, and buckle down to make it all whole.