One morning I awoke with an idea. A fine idea, big as a house. My greatest idea ever, a masterpiece. I would find a job as a night clerk in a hotel – that was the idea. This would give me a chance to read and work at the same time. I leaped out of bed, swallowed breakfast and took the stairs six at a time. On the sidewalk I stood a moment and mulled over my idea. The sun scorched the street, burning my eyes to wakefulness. Strange. Now I was wide awake and the idea didn't seem so good, one of those which comes in half-sleep. A dream, a mere dream, a triviality. I couldn't get a job as a night clerk in this harbor town for the simple reason that no hotel in this harbor town used night clerks. A mathematical deduction – simple enough. I went back up the stairs to the apartment and sat down. 

“Why did you run like that?” my mother asked. 

“To get exercise. For my legs.”

The days came with fog. The nights were nights and nothing else. The days didn't change from one to the other, the golden sun blasting away and then dying out. I was always alone. It was hard to remember such monotony. The days would not move. They stood like grey stones. Time passed slowly. Two months crawled by.

John Fante, The Road to Los Angeles

Strange times. The dishes remained unwashed. Sometimes they went to bed and the bed wasn't made. It didn't matter but they thought about it, of her in the front room by the window. Mornings she lay in bed and did not get up to see them off to school. They dressed in alarm, peeking at her from the bedroom door. She lay like one dead, the rosary in her hand. In the kitchen the dishes had been washed sometime during the night. They were surprised again, and disappointed: for they had awakened to expect a dirty kitchen. It made a difference. They enjoyed the change from a clean to a dirty kitchen. But there it was, clean again, their breakfast in the oven. They looked in before leaving for school. Only her lips moved.

John Fante, Wait Until Spring, Bandini