Tired November Morning

The alarm goes off, but he's already awake. He gets up quickly to turn it off, as the piercing shriek of the portable clock makes him anxious, and because of the sleeping Chinese guy on the bunk above him.
He had put the clock on the small desk in his room, about three feet from his bed, so that he would have to get up to turn it off, and since he would be out of bed anyway....
He stands there, staring at his pants. He loathes to put them on, as he will need to put on his undershirt and coat and clogs and toque and head out the door soon after.
Its the first step in a process that he is not looking forward to beginning.
In the dark, he turns to the little sink to his left, and looks to see if he needs a shave. It is too dark to tell, but something about his shadowed reflection catches his still groggy attention.
His face looks bigger. Maybe it is because he has lost some weight. His hair needs cutting, but with this train strike, there is no way of getting to a decent place.
His eyes look a little sunken and are framed by puffy, dark circles.
Then it dawns on him: he is exhausted.
He exhales.
Turning from the mirror, he opens the shade to look out on the day. It is still very dark. He can see the cars silently racing to and fro and wonders how those drivers get up early enough to get to where they are going.
This window is so thick that no noise comes through. Maybe birds chirp; maybe cars honk; maybe the rush of traffic whirs by his little room on the fourth floor of this little hotel, but if the morning's delicate orchestra is playing, he can't hear it.
Somewhere, in the distance, the Eiffel Tower is still sparkling, or maybe that is the light of planes coming through the fog. It is too dark to tell.
Months ago, he would have told himself it was the Eiffel Tower, but now, it seems more likely that it is the steady stream of planes cruising overhead than anything else.
He wonders how many of the people on those planes he will have to feed.
He wonders how busy the place will be today.
He wonders if he can bring himself to even look for his razor, much less his pants.
His bed is like a pack of sirens, calling him sweetly to rest again. How is it that after eight hours of solid sleep, he can be so very tired?
But then, it isn't really solid sleep, is it?
How long was it that he turned from this side to that, waiting to drift off? Half an hour? An hour? He has never had difficulty sleeping like he does these days.
He decides, with an unhappy resolution, that he cannot go back to bed.
In silence and dark, he looks back to the mirror, for confirmation. Maybe his face will have changed. Maybe he was seeing things. Maybe he doesn't look so much older.
He does. Maybe its the dark, though... (It isn't).
His arms ache. His legs ache. His stomach is empty. His eyes are dry.
And when he stops thinking about these things, that is when he picks up the tooth brush and hair brush and razor, and scrubs off the night.
Fresh breathed and rosy cheeked, he is still just a better coiffed version of a tired, old man.
Didn't she used to ask him how he just popped out of bed in the mornings? Wasn't is always her who had difficulty getting up? Is this what that was like?
Before he knows it, in dark and silence, his pants are on, as are his shirt and jacket and shoes.
He is out the door and into the chill. The morning is dull and blue.
By the time he reaches the back door to the kitchen, he is cold. At least this should wake him up, but it doesn't.
He drags himself to the kitchen, and brews an espresso. He drinks it with a fresh croissant. Nothing.
Hours later, in the rush of ravenous customers, he is asked to run down the hall to get more bread.
He does. He isn't thinking. He isn't learning. He is just responding to orders.
He trots himself down the hall, and notices through the thick glass windows that the sun is just about to peak over the hills. The sky is grey and pink, and there is light all around, a soft one that doesn't jar him like the fluorescent lights of the kitchen. In the light he can make out his reflection in the glass. He doesn't dare look too long, so he takes a moment to stop and look out on the sun burning over the horizon. A large V of black birds cuts a swath across his sight line. The cars whiz by.
He can't hear them. Its like watching the world from inside a snow globe, fake and silent.
And it is this thought that jars his feet to motion, that pulls him away from the window that he will not look through the next time he passes.
He gets the bread, and returns to the kitchen.