I force myself to stay in the moment. I don’t have time for the past or the future. My life is the present. For many years, I played the what if game. What if I had a normal life? Where would I be? Would I be married? Would I have kids? But then twenty or thirty minutes would be gone. Wasted. Thinking about things that I can’t change. That are unchangeable.

I listen to three songs by The Lumineers, my new favorite band, then five minutes of Feed the Pig, an investment podcast. It is two miles to the Potomac, a highway of water separating Virginia from Maryland, and I spend a perfect minute watching a trawler sucked downstream by the sweeping black current. I used to wonder what it would look like during the light of day, how the water would look under a burning sun and puffy white clouds, but day doesn’t exist in my world. Only night. Only darkness.

As I head back, I see a car turn onto the side street. This is the first car I’ve seen in six days. It is a Ford Focus. A new one. The Ford stock closed at 13.02. Just saying.

I do the four miles in just under twenty-eight minutes and when I reach my condo steps it is 3:38 a.m.

Twenty-two minutes left.

I do push-ups and sit-ups for three minutes.

I take a four minute shower.

When I pull on a clean set of nearly the same outfit and head back to the kitchen, it is 3:48.

Twelve minutes.

I pull a salad from the fridge: greens, carrots, tomatoes, quinoa, and chicken. Healthy stuff. I grab an apple, two chocolate chips cookies, and a big glass of milk. I sit down at the table and click on my Kindle. I’m reading Lone Survivor, about a Navy SEAL who survives a shootout against the Taliban in the Afghanistan mountains. Amazing stuff.

I eat slowly, soak up each word.

I take the last bite of my second chocolate chip cookie at 3:58.

I turn the Kindle off, stand up, and walk toward the bedroom.

I sit down on my bed at 3:59 a.m.

That’s when I hear the woman’s scream.

I stand up and run to the window. Directly across from my condo is a ranch style house with a gate. The Ford Focus I saw earlier is parked on the street directly in front. I have no idea who lives there. I’ve never seen them. That could be said for all my neighbors.

I know I should go back to my bed, that I am going to fall over any moment. But I can’t. I’m glued to the window. I might as well be stuck between the two panes. I tick off seconds.

The gate opens and a man walks briskly through.