Sitting all alone listening to Nick Drake, his computer is about to shut down, consume its last battery reserves.

He sits back, sips from his tea, squeezes a little more smoke from his cigarette and burns the butt in the ashtray.

What to want from life, in a night like this? Women? Vacations? Money? A new car?

Some sleep?

Combs his hair and fits the headphones back over his head. If there’s at least enough battery for this song to finish…

Suddenly feels a rush, an expectation, a little anxiety. Is he going to be able to listen it to the end, or is the computer going to die on him, and force him to go to bed with that feeling of incompleteness of not finishing something?

And then Mehldau’s words come to his mind, from that record’s leaflet; that to face death is to face our own mortality, and that by knowing our own finitude, we are alive.

A rush to be alive, to do things before the end, much like studying for an exam on the day before, because there is a deadline. A dead line.

Tea is not enough, nor cars, women, money, sleep.

The last thing he wants is to sleep.