The golden slant of late-day sun casts harsh stripes across my office, bars of light that trap me at my desk. The calendar on my computer blinks with urgent appointments, reminders of what must be rearranged, what must be concealed. I feel it already, the pull of the moon, the stirring beneath my skin that threatens to unmake me. It creeps in with this unnatural light, sending a hum through my bones, a quickening through my blood that I cannot ignore. I flinch when a colleague coughs in the hallway, the sound too sharp, too close, even with the door shut.
My fingers flex against the keyboard, trying to resume the day's work, but the click of keys from distant offices pounds like a drumbeat in my head. Someone laughs at the other end of the corridor, a sudden, jarring burst of sound that c
