Like the Rockefeller son who sojourned in New Guinea to study the headhunters, I get an unexpected dunking, consider the odds of swimming to shore. Unlike him I don’t like my chances, among the sharks & saltwater crocs, but swim, swim in the dark, beating down panic, until the clock radio comes on. The music, like the B-side of a justly forgotten single, is irksome, & I struggle with the controls. I give up trying to turn it off, try turning it down, but it gets louder; try to make it softer, but it doesn’t change, maybe it never changed. My wife, next to me in bed, complains from beyond the grave, carps softly at my inability to cope. Then, awake in actual fact: her ghost has fled, I know how to turn off the radio, same as I always did, but listen to the music for a while, still hating it, but unwilling to break the mood. Then rise, as for another day.