I think he came down with Distractonitis, a rare disease that appears when a colleague of yours dies but it has to stay a secret.

I almost had this happen once and I never went from fully asleep to fully awake this quickly. I’m talking about full awareness of everything that almost happened. If we could somehow harness this power, we could eliminate all the time we waste being half-asleep in the morning. But Big Caffeine would never let that happen.