Six o'clock, and the same as yesterday

It's ten to six. You're in, or nearly in, and there's a small pull towards a cupboard or a fridge or a drawer that has nothing to do with hunger. The day is done, or done enough, and the thing that says so is a glass. You pour it. The first mouthful is good, and the second is fine, and by the third you're not really tasting it, you're just holding it, and the evening has begun. You'd have poured it if the day had been dreadful. You'd have poured it if the day had been the best in a month. You poured it yesterday, and you'll pour it tomorrow, and if anyone asked you'd say you'd earned it, and you'd mean it.

Or it's a bar of chocolate, once the children are finally down, eaten standing at the counter in about ninety seconds while looking at your phone. Or it's the app, on a Tuesday that went badly, and something on its way that you'll have forgotten ordering by the time it arrives. Or it's the episode, or the scroll in bed, or the cigarette on the back step. These are invented, but I'd guess yours is close. The thing changes. The shape doesn't. It arrives at the same hour, it takes the same form, and it comes with the same sentence.

Some words. The treat is whatever it is you give yourself, and I'm using your word for it. The daily is the treat when it comes every day, whatever the day was like. The earning is the sentence that comes with it, "I've earned it", or "I deserve this", or "I need this", which are the same sentence in different moods. The expecting is the stretch of the afternoon spent looking forward to it, and the settling is the moment it arrives and the expecting stops. The flat evening is the evening without it. A marker is what a reward does, it marks a day out from the other days, and chapter 4 is about why the daily can't be one. A proper treat is one that's rare, chosen ahead of time and marks something, which chapter 20 is about. And the hour is the time of day the treat has claimed as its own.

Before you go on, do one thing, and give it a fortnight. Each day, write down the treat, and next to it write one letter. A C if you chose it, meaning that at some point before the hour you decided today would have one and could say why. An A if it arrived, meaning the hour came and the treat came with it and no decision was made that you can remember. Be honest about the A's. They aren't a fault. They're the subject of the book, and chapter 17 will want them.