He woke at two-seventeen, which was the pipe's fault.
It made the sound it always made at approximately this hour, a low, pressurized complaint from somewhere inside the east wall, and Mike opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling and then looked at the time and then looked at the ceiling again.
The water stain in the far corner was still there. He had catalogued it on day one and had not thought about it since, but at two-seventeen in the morning with a pipe making its usual announcement, it was the most visible thing in the room.
He lay still for a moment, not attempting to go back to sleep right away, because doing so never worked. The trick was to let the wakefulness exist without fighting it, allow it a few minutes to make its case, and then decline it.
He thought about the day.
