Damned If I Do
I don’t sleep.
I just sit in my car watching condensation turn into frost on the car parked next to me through semi-translucent wisps of smoke, pondering why I’m not sleeping.
Somewhere in the middle of giving advice to those with lost faith in love and continuing down this path of solitude, my thoughts dart back and forth between cursing my biological proclivity to need rest, and my psychological inclination not to sleep.
I walk wearily alone, accompanied by a powerfully paralyzing paradox.
So I don’t sleep. I just listen to the voices in my head. Since I have an acrid distaste for arguments, I ignore those voices once they begin debating and zone out to some music. Eventually that sparks thoughts too. Usually about the same time my cigarette burns out and I start to wonder why I’m smoking again.
I’m already in the car. I figure I could either ignite it and drive to the gym, or not, and stroll back into my room and continue giving advice on love eternal. I figure I could also pen a blog or two whilst chatting the night away with the lady loveless.
She’s lovely. She really does deserve the best. Were I emotionally available, I’d probably try to give it to her. But she probably wouldn’t notice, and I would find myself with a longer list of women I should’ve just left alone.
The fact that I’m musing this concerns me because somewhere on another tectonic plate there is a woman. She would’ve been the woman I would’ve married. But circumstance drew us apart. Tradition carved a crevice so deep in the ground that holding hands as the distance grew between us would be futile unless she jumped onto my glacier so that we could float away.
But she didn’t jump. Which is probably for the better because Lord knows this little block of ice of mine will melt. Plus there are no beds on this block. Just a computer, a studio, art supplies and books.
And my car.
And this pack of cigarettes that I promise to not touch. At least for the next fortnight.
The upside to being awake though, is not dreaming. I think it was Anatole France who once rambled about how dreams liberate the lucid revolutionary mind. Dreams also provide an escape for those looking for one.
I’m tired of running away from problems. Procrastinating and pushing things to tomorrow. When your days run into each other, tomorrow is today. It might as well have been yesterday because you’ve seen the patterns clear enough to be able to predict just how the days will unfold. You’ve watched enough people to understand just how they will react. You begin conversations knowing you can almost control the flow, and their outcomes. It’s like being an architect in a real life Matrix. Or like being a really good fortune-teller. Or mind-reader.
Yet I can’t read her mind. And I do not know what the future holds for me.
Two mysteries should not try and solve each other.
It’s almost 3am. For some reason I volunteered to work tomorrow. Or today. I forget what to call it. Anyhow, that means I should be asleep so I can wake up on time. But it’s late. For most that means get in bed and doze now.
For me, that means “Which book can I read and finish before the sun rises?”
I’ve found a book. I’m going for it.
Goodnight Earth.
Insomniac's Dream 