If his neurons seemed hyperactive, they had reason to be. In his mind, he pictured hangdog kids gazing at empty cereal bowls. He saw seniors, their porous bones softening on the spot. He visualized bakers, feet up, reading the day’s Chronicle Herald as their mixing bowls sat idle. He imagined coffee drinkers at Tim Hortons drive-throughs, gape-mouthed upon learning that a medium double-double was suddenly as accessible as lasting peace in the Middle East. “Oh man I’m late,” whispered Bill. “I’m late.” And so he arrowed east, his white van careering forlornly through the gathering dawn, his eyes scratchy with fatigue, his gut clenched with worry. He had been on the job for six hours by now. The workday began at midnight at the Farmer’s Co-Operative Dairy at the dead end of a country road outside of Halifax. The day was meant to end in the early afternoon, twenty kilometres from where he’d started, after presenting his last cases of milk, yogourt, cheese and cream to a restaurant readying for the suppertime rush.
