Just a moment, I told myself. Just a minute to shut everything off.
The world slipped away before I finished the thought.
It wasn't real sleep so much as blackness. No dreams. No thoughts. Just nothing.
When consciousness finally clawed its way back, it did it in fragments. The café looked different. Softer somehow. The pale light outside had deepened into evening, turning the windows into dark smudged mirrors. Inside, the overhead bulbs glowed warm and yellow. The mug in front of me had gone cold, a thin film forming on its surface. The migraine had retreated from blinding to bearable, settling into a thick, pounding ache at the base of my skull. My limbs felt heavy and slow, .
Then my phone vibrated.
The jolt rattled against my thigh and buzzed on the tabletop when it slipped from m
