The second time in a week, it has come to this. In the black, impossible night, writing in my
head to while away the time as my mind still whirrs with the same activity as
in daylight. I lie here, feeling…wrong. I’m too hot, too sweaty, my bed clothes are
tickling, and I’m too full after a lovely dinner with friends. As a result – my body appears to have
forgotten the need to sleep.
I know that I need this sleep. I’m awful
when I’m tired, as I will be tomorrow – grumpy, slow and inattentive. But, as
ever, what you want most you can’t have, and so I resign myself to pretending I’m
sleep, with the hope that if I stay still and quiet enough then I’ll trick
Somnus into thinking he’s already taken me and I’ll be dreaming. If I still my muscles enough then maybe my
body will stop weighing down with my rough skin pressing against every fold and
crumple of the sheets and I’ll trickle into dream - as my mind disorganises, disassembles
and dissipates, slipping into the gaps between my cells and between the atoms
that form me and I stop being a student worrying about placement the next day
and become another dreamer in the strange, free world of the fantastical that
we at the same time share and call uniquely our own.
My eyes open in the dark. I feel as though it should be summer noontime,
with a whole day of activity ahead – such a contrast to the immense silence at
this time of night. It’s a silence where the distant rumble of a train seems
like thunder, a cough from the next room a gunshot. I breathe in deep as my eyes adjust to this
unseen world. There is a sweet scent in the air; I picture the ghostly white
night blossom that it must have come from. I can make out shapes in the dark of
my room, looming like icebergs made of dark matter. Some nights this would translate into a
waking nightmare, my instinctive terror of the black unknown in overdrive. On a night like this however, I am too awake
for such nonsense. I play at creating
pictures out of the shape as one might make shapes from clouds. My room is only so big, however, and an alert
mind is one that’s easily bored. I think
over the day to come. Sadly, there’s not
much to it, and I know to stay on the vague side of plans lest my wandering
mind trips into anxiety, and I have one of THOSE nights.
All this tires, however, so I just ruminate even more. Some of my tendrils of inner dialogue start
to resonate with the inner voice that I so often misplace.
So I turn off the light and pick up the pen.
