my dad calls to talk. i can tell it's going to be a slightly inane conversation - he wants to know what i want for dinner tomorrow when i get in.. i've already told him i don't know what time i'm going to get in... i'm working... i have a deadline. I tell him, i can't talk! I make a joke, I tell him I want a dish made of all the things my mum and sister can't eat. Onions, garlic and bread, please, I say. He laughs. I hang up. Total conversation= <1 minute.

i keep working.

an hour later, the phone rings. It's my brother. I am excited, i haven't talked to him in forever and I've been meaning to call. I look at the document, it's not finished, but I answer my phone anyway. Happy. "i've been meaning to call!" Bad reception/no one there. I hang up. He calls again. Same thing happens. I am convinced it's a pocket dial. He never calls. I'm texting him a joke about pocked dialing when he calls again. This time it's clear. He's in the truck with my mum and my sister. Dad's on the way to the hospital in an ambulance. Cardiac event? They don't know. They'll call. Seems fine. Not sure. They're almost there.

I hang up. I'm 7 hours away.

I watch a video of a snowman and a panda. I've seen it before. The panda is impossibly adorable, even as he is eviscerating the snowman with disturbingly effective slashes.

I open up my document and keep working but now every blink takes a minute and every keystroke is in slow motion i want it that way, i need time to be stretched out, i need to hold on to all of it.

8:45 p.m. - 2016-12-22