Five days was a long time at Diplomat's Week. Agnes, who had once thought days existed merely for identification purposes, temporal name-tags to facilitate social confluence, came to know each one as a prisoner does her jailers.
Of course Monday was the worst, a jack-booted Nazi of a day; people did suicidal things on Mondays, like start diets and watch documentaries. Fear of Monday also tended to ruin Sunday, an invasion which Agnes resented deeply.
Moreover, it made her suspicious of Tuesday; a day whose unrelenting tedium was deceptively camouflaged by the mere fact of its not being Monday.
Wednesday, on the other hand, was touch and go, delicately balanced between the memory of the last weekend and the thought of the weekend to come. Wednesday was a plateau and dangerous things could happen on plateaux. For example, one could forget one was in prison at all.
Thursday was Agnes's favourite, a day dedicated to pure anticipation. By then she was on the home stretch, sprinting in glorious slow-motion towards the distant flutter of Friday's finishing line; which, however, when reached, often felt to her like nothing but a memento mori of the next incarceration.
from Saving Agnes, by Rachel Cusk
Of course Monday was the worst, a jack-booted Nazi of a day; people did suicidal things on Mondays, like start diets and watch documentaries. Fear of Monday also tended to ruin Sunday, an invasion which Agnes resented deeply.
Moreover, it made her suspicious of Tuesday; a day whose unrelenting tedium was deceptively camouflaged by the mere fact of its not being Monday.
Wednesday, on the other hand, was touch and go, delicately balanced between the memory of the last weekend and the thought of the weekend to come. Wednesday was a plateau and dangerous things could happen on plateaux. For example, one could forget one was in prison at all.
Thursday was Agnes's favourite, a day dedicated to pure anticipation. By then she was on the home stretch, sprinting in glorious slow-motion towards the distant flutter of Friday's finishing line; which, however, when reached, often felt to her like nothing but a memento mori of the next incarceration.
from Saving Agnes, by Rachel Cusk
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