Lydia’s nights were spent lying motionless on her narrow bed, the thin cheap sheets smooth and only crumpled where her hands gripped the cloth at the top.
She had been a restless sleeper, once.
Some nights she’d wake up at midnight, exactly halfway through the night. Her eyes would open slowly, and lazily she’d watch the moonlight creep across the floor. She’d fall asleep without remembering she’d ever been otherwise.
Tonight she slept straight through.

Tuesday morning, and Lydia’s small alarm clock chimed. She opened one eye at a time, and was sitting up before the little box reached its fifth ring. Bending down to the floor, she turned it off with a touch of a finger and stood with a small stretch.
It was colder this morning, seeping in through the walls and the window. Outside, the sky was the flat endless gray that it sometimes turned in November, drearier and dull, foreshadowing rain.
In her loose gray slacks and oversized white t-shirt, Lydia padded over to her clothes. Four pink uniforms stood on a cheap aluminum clothesrack, beside an old wooden chest of drawers and a wicker hamper. One uniform, a pair of socks, and a pair of underwear lay in the hamper. A bra sat on top of the dresser.
Lydia picked up the bra, a uniform, a new pair of underwear and a clean pair of socks. She glanced out the window and couldn’t suppress a shudder, then walked into the bathroom.
She found the light switch automatically, turning it on without a glance. She placed the pile of clothes beside the sink, but hung the coat hanger with the uniform from the nail on the back of the door. Stripping off her pajamas, she turned the handles of the shower to exactly the right places – the left 170 degrees to the outside, the right 135 degrees to the inside – and stepped into the ready stream.
Ten minutes later, she stepped out and dressed. Brushing her hair up into a ponytail, she fastened it with a hairtie from the dish beside the sink. It was black, today. Pulling on her socks, she opened the door, turned off the light, and walked across to the door.
Her shoes, black flats that are comfortable rather than elegant, sit at 90-degree angles from the wall, a foot to the right of the door. She pulls them on and puts on her coat, not even bothering to check her pocket.
She had never turned on the bare bulb that sat above the empty expanse of the main room, and so didn’t reach out for the light switch.
It was four thirty in the morning, and Lydia walked out her front door, locking it behind her, and continued down the rickety steps of the house.
It was four thirty in the morning, and dark on the stairs, but she didn’t turn on the light. She skipped the creakiest and the absent planks automatically, her hard-soled shoes making gentle tapping sounds against the wood.
At the outer door, she stood in the dark space for a few seconds while she found the key by feel. She wedged it into the old lock, biting her lip as she turned it, then left it there while she placed both her hands on the handle and pulled as hard as she could. The door stuck, obstinate, for several seconds, before releasing suddenly. Lydia let go quickly, avoiding a fall onto the stairs behind, and swung the door around to where she could fetch out the key. Pulling it firmly behind her, she locked the door again, grunting as the uncooperative key turned. Putting her plain keychain back in her pocket, she set out across the dirt path to the stone pathway, quickstepping her way to the sidewalk.

When she reached the diner, she stopped and looked at it for a moment. Customers were already seated inside, not many but enough to cause concern. Usually, nobody was at the restaurant until after 5:30. A slight frown on her face, Lydia walked inside.
She automatically moved her belongings from her coat to her uniform pocket, looking around her at the kitchen, which was making food rather than preparing too. Nodding at anybody who looked at her, Lydia walked towards Sally.
"Customers are early," Lydia said calmly.
Sally nodded, her face concentrated. Becky was nowhere in sight. "Pilgrim’s changed their first shift starting time."
"I’ll start coming in at 4:45, then."
Sally looked up, brown hair falling into her face. "Thanks," she said, a faint look of surprise in her face. "I’ll tell Greg."
Lydia nodded, picked up a pad of paper and a pen, and stepped out into the diner.

The diner was busy all that day, and Lydia barely got a chance to stop to eat halfway through the morning. She hatted the food they served at S and D’s, all grease, fat, sugar, salt, meat and soggy vegetables. Still, leftovers were free to her, and it took no time to eat, and she was hungry. By the time the lunch crowd had left it was 2 o’clock, and Lydia was exhausted.
With a sigh, she went to the unused chair and lay down her pad and pen. With a nod towards her coworkers, she walked out to the back door and unhooked her coat. Putting it on as she opened the door, she shivered at the cold and wished she had brought a hat or a scarf. She was walking along the side of the diner as she moved her keys and money and ID from her coat pocket to her uniform, and was on the sidewalk by the time she had buttoned up her coat.
The walk was less pleasant than usual today, the very air feeling as flat as the sky looked. The cold was unpleasant, and Lydia felt overworked and unhappy. She almost wished the rain would just come, and get over with it. The suspense wasn’t killing her, but something sure was. The blah-ness of the entire world pressed in on her very skin, and though the only outward expression of this was a slight twisting of her thin lips, Lydia clearly thought this day was not going as well as it ought to.