The Day of a Night-Shift Worker, When the Whole Street Heads to Work and You Head to Bed

Wednesday. It was getting light while I was still standing behind the counter, and by the time I reached the alley the whole street was up.

6:40. I switch off the engine outside my rented room. Down the alley everyone is heading out: motorbikes starting one after another, the bread seller pushing his cart past, someone calling a child down for breakfast. I walk against the current, backpack on my shoulder, eyes still stinging from fluorescent tubes. A man wheeling his bike out nods hello, I nod back, and it feels like two people walking opposite directions on the same road.

7:10. A baguette from the bread seller sits on my lap as I sit on the edge of the bed. I try to eat the first bite really slowly. Crackly crust, cool cucumber, the sharp smell of coriander. Two bites in, my head runs off to last night: the customer who bought two packs of noodles at two in the morning and counted out small change for ages while I stood there saying nothing. I keep eating without tasting any of it. By the time I look down, half the baguette is gone. I put the spoon down and watch the steam still rising, two seconds. Then I eat the last bite properly. I learned about eating slowly from a piece on eating a meal without your phone, though I have never once managed it completely.

8:00. Two layers of curtain pulled shut, earplugs in, lie down. Outside it is still someone else's morning: engines, the call of hot bread sellers, the landlady's flip-flops passing along the corridor. I do not force myself to sleep. I lie there and listen. Some mornings I sleep, some mornings I only lie there, and I do not keep count of which today is.

14:10. I wake in a street that is having its afternoon nap. Tin roof hot, a fan ticking steadily in the next room, someone snoring faintly through the wall. Zalo shows twelve unread messages, mostly from the old friends group.

"Drinks tonight?"

"I start my shift at nine."

"Oh right, forgot. Another time."

"Another time" are the two words I have heard most this year. Nobody means anything unkind by it. It is just that my hours are not in anyone's calendar. I put the phone face down and sit still for a moment, my throat a little tight, and then it passes.

15:30. Cooking rice. The smell of braised fish from next door drifts over, so good I stop short at the door of the shared kitchen. I wash the rice twice, the water going cloudy and then slowly clear. Cold water runs between my fingers. That is all, but for those few seconds nobody is asking me for anything. I remember someone writing about washing dishes without thinking of anything else, and I understand why they wrote it. Washing rice is the same.

17:45. The street fills up again: bikes coming home from work nose to tail, kids kicking a ball at the end of the alley, mothers calling them in for dinner, every voice familiar. This is the hour I feel most clearly how out of step I am: everyone comes home just as I am getting ready to leave. I sit on the doorstep with an iced milk coffee, watching.

Then I slip into counting: my friends are eating dinner with their wives and children right now, telling stories about the office. I count until I forget the coffee altogether, and when I look down the ice has all melted. I take a sip. Watery now, still sweet. I sit and finish it, no hurry.

20:50. Out into the alley, the street lamps just coming on. The street is closing its doors for the night while I open mine to go out. The bread seller is packing up his cart:

— Off to work, love?

— Yes.

— Remember to eat, now.

— I have eaten, uncle.

Two lines back and forth, and I walk on, and my face feels a little looser. I do not know why. I only note down that it did.

3:20. Inside the shop the night is so quiet I can hear the air conditioner switch modes. A woman on a delivery bike comes in for a bottle of water, sweat still beading at her temples.

— Open at this hour, thank goodness.

— Yes, we are open until morning.

— Then I will keep stopping by.

After she leaves I stand looking at the glass door for a while. She is someone awake at the same hour as me, and I had never once thought of her. Like the guard at the next building, the motorbike taxi driver in the middle of the night, the man at the bakery who has been kneading dough since three. I realise there is another neighbourhood, not in the alley but in these hours, and I am standing in the middle of it without having greeted anyone.

6:35. Shift over. The sun is up, the street heading the opposite way to me again. I walk to the bike park and this time I nod at the first person who passes.

7:55. I close the curtains. Somewhere in the city, someone else has just closed theirs too.

When to seek professional support

This article is a diary page about feeling out of step with the people around you. It cannot replace treatment, and I am not promising that writing down a day like this will make the feeling go away.

But here are a few signs you should bring to a professional, rather than carrying them alone:

• A feeling of loneliness or being out of step that lasts for weeks and does not ease with time
• Tiredness that goes on even after enough rest, in which case it is worth seeing a doctor to rule out physical causes
• You increasingly avoid people, even on days when you are free
• You think about hurting yourself, even if it is just a passing thought

The last point cannot wait. Speak with someone you trust, today. The Emergency Support page explains what holds true in moments like that.

Seeing a professional does not mean you are weak, just as seeing a dentist for a toothache does not mean you cannot look after yourself.