Words from Alifa

"As usual I am waiting for the call to dawn prayers, after which I shall go to my bedroom and sleep for a few hours. The maid will let herself into the flat with her own key, clean up, bring in the necessities for life and put them in the fridge, take the money I leave for her, and depart. This is the only way to live at present, to turn life upside down, to sleep, with the aid of sleeping pills, during the hours when life is being led, and to be awake with my thoughts of him when the world around me is sleeping: to turn life upside down and thus be partly dead to it."
The above is an except from the short story 'Telephone Call' from Distant View of a Minaret by Egyptian writer Alifa Rifaat. I really enjoyed her collection of short stories and this passage in particular, which I find so emotionally draining.