Time. Flash fiction by Bernice McDonnell

Your eyes snap open and the gloom spills in. It comes as a shock to you again, as it does every time you wake. Lockdown. The world gone to hell in a handcart. Just you, alone in this house with all the time in the world. You have no excuse now. You have no reason not to do all those things you keep saying you’re going to do but never get around to. Put that chest of drawers together! Start playing that instrument! Write that novel! Start that fitness regime! Learn that language! Marie Kondo your wardrobe!
But six weeks in and what have you done? Shuffled from bed to sofa to kitchen on a loop. Netflix and biscuits. Sleep and shame. This is what wakes you up at night – not the shock of a global pandemic, the shock of the realisation that time was never the problem. You’re just too fucking lazy.