Also the person we're talking about has read a lot of Stephen King in their life, which maybe their mom was right about and they shouldn't have done, because they are a suggestible little thing aren't they.

A person could get jumpy -- real goddamn jumpy -- when they're the only one awake in the house at 2:17 a.m. on a Monday, a few hours after Sunday night's Walking Dead, having just finished an insane whale of an editing project, close to their very limit physically and mentally because this is the 10th or 12th night on Drastically Reduced Sleeptime* and the dishwasher is on and the world makes weird sounds at two fucking a.m. and the motion sensor light waaay up on the front porch like right by the front door just came on for no reason.


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*including one literal, actual all-nighter to hit a major editing deadline which {SURPRISE!!!} hurts a lot more at almost-40 than it did at 19, one night of epic wine-based drunkenness thanks to the sudden resurfacing of a friend who hasn't been seen or heard from since 1997 but now has the means to casually order a bottle of Chateau d'Yquem 1995 for a nightcap at the end of an hours-long dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant, and a fuckton of late-to-bed/asscrack-of-dawn-to-rise work on the aforementioned Projecto Giganto FUCK THIS I'M GOING TO BED