It’s a Monday noon in late August. My colleagues left for the restaurant while I brought something to eat from home, so I can spend some alone time in the break room.

I just had lunch, and the empty plates are staring back at me. I’d like to take a walk, but the sunlight outside is so furious I might as well crawl into a kiln. So I just pace around the table. And there’s something nagging at me, a feeling so unusual that it actually takes me a while to understand what it is.

My head is completely devoid of thoughts.

I turn to each one of the blank walls—north, east, south, west—and study the uninteresting decorations hanging on them. I’m searching for a prompt, a catalyst that will spark a reaction in my neurons, trap an idea in the weave of my synapses, but I find none. I’ve got my brain on strike.

I look at the watch and expect to see that five minutes have passed, but those five minutes are actually thirty. Half an hour of my life just snuck past me and I will never take it back. It’s a scary thought, in this age of timetables and to-do lists, to grow half an hour older and no wiser. Hastily, anxiously, I take out my phone. I’ve got six e-books that need to be read, and yet when I try them I give up after two sentences. Nothing on YouTube catches my interest. What about Candy Crush? Don’t want to play it. Instagram? I’m fed up with that feed. Facebook? Nah.

Calm and silence surround me. It’s so quiet, I could just sit and listen to the brushing of leaves outside if I wanted to, but my brain churns and goes the extra mile searching for anything to make my time, quote-unquote, ‘worthwhile’.

How about some music? I try classical, trap, jazz, rock and even vaporwave. It’s all white noise to my ears. So I shut the phone and shout a silent plea to my brain. Maybe I should plan? That sounds like a good idea. What do I need to do tomorrow evening? What do I need to go to the supermarket for? Should I write this down? I scramble for a pen but find none. I take out my phone yet again, search the internet, download three different planning apps and my phone crashes after two seconds.

After that I look at the time, and what do you know, my break’s up. My workmates return. One of them enters the break room. He has the most relaxed smile on his face as he says, “You look stressed out, did something happen?”

“No,” I answer, and it’s absolutely true. But what he said is also true: my heart’s racing like I’ve been running away from something, except all I was running away from was literally nothing.

“Okay,” he says, not too convinced. “Whatever, let’s get back to work.”

I walk to the door. My joints ache, my breath’s shallow. Before I get out, my brain finally opens up to me and elaborates a thought.

I shouldn’t have run away from nothing, it says. I should’ve embraced it, accepted it for what it was—a rare moment of rest.

And next time I will.