I thought I knew what tired was. I’ve worked three jobs at once, pulled all-nighters cramming for finals, even stayed up for 72 hours straight on a deployment once. But that was a different kind of tired, the kind where your body gives out before your mind does. This is… insidious. It gets into your bones, whispers at the back of your brain, makes the world feel like it’s wrapped in damp wool. And the constant humming of the baby monitor, it’s not exactly a lullaby. More like a static buzz in the ear, a perpetual reminder that even when he’s quiet, he’s still *there*, a tiny, fragile anchor pulling you down. Last night, around 2 AM, was the worst of it. He’d been crying for what felt like hours, a thin, reedy sound that scraped against my teeth. My wife was passed out, finally, after a twelve-hour shift at the hospital, and I didn’t have the heart to wake her. Besides, she breastfeeds, which means I usually get the pre-feeding soothe and sway anyway. So I picked him up, this warm, squirming bundle of need, and started the usual routine. Pacing the floor, humming off-key, rocking him side to side, watching the shadow of the mobile spin slow circles on the wall. His head was nestled just under my chin, his tiny hand curled around my index finger, surprisingly strong. And then it hit. Like a sudden, cold wave breaking over my head. A thought, fully formed, crystalline and sharp: *just drop him.* Just let go. See what happens. My arms went stiff, locked in place, and a strange, almost giddy energy surged through my veins. It wasn’t a desire to hurt him, not really. It was more like a perverse curiosity, a chemical misfire, an uncontrollable urge to shatter the suffocating routine, to see if I could still feel something other than bone-deep exhaustion and a dull, constant anxiety about the bills. My grip tightened, almost painfully, on his tiny body, as if my hands were fighting a separate battle against my own brain. It was like I was watching myself from above, some dark, comedic play where the protagonist suddenly develops an uncontrollable twitch. A laugh, short and humorless, caught in my throat. He quieted then, almost instantly. His eyes, dark and enormous, blinked up at me, clear and innocent. And in that moment, the wave receded, leaving behind a cold, clammy residue of self-loathing. The sudden weight in my arms felt heavier, the air in the room denser. I kept rocking, mechanically, until he finally drifted off, a small, wet sigh escaping his lips. I stood there for another twenty minutes, just holding him, the image of his little head hitting the worn wooden floor flashing behind my eyes. It wasn’t a hallucination, not exactly. More like a sudden, unwelcome truth about the fragile scaffolding holding everything up. I laid him down in his bassinet, gently, as if he might break if I breathed too hard. Then I walked into the kitchen, turned on the single bare bulb, and just stared at the chipped formica counter. My reflection in the dark window looked like a stranger – hollow eyes, hair a mess, a faint tremor in my hands. The silence of the house pressed in, no baby monitor static now, just the hum of the fridge. I wanted to scream, or punch a wall, or just disappear into the linoleum. Instead, I just leaned against the counter, tasting the metallic tang of fear and fury, wondering how long until the next 2 AM and what other brilliant ideas my brain would conjure up then.