He tosses and turns in the vain effort to get to sleep. There is throbbing in his head, the natural consequence of this sort of upheaval, this sort of discombobulation of schedule and energy and the flailing inability to stay at rest for more than two-hundred and forty minutes at a time. It is a vicious cycle, the pain creating the need to sleep creating the need to awaken creating the pain. There is ticking in the background, the gentle click of time in its passage, meting out empty hours between newly filled hours that march for a hazy horizon gaining clarity but still no certainty whatsoever.
One never knows the exact moment that one falls asleep. It is the magical nature of losing consciousness that one is never around to feel it. One can beckon it or hasten it or trick oneself toward it, but one never gets to feel that precise moment of final drift into oblivion. The closest that can be reconciled is to awaken shortly after and realize that one had just drifted, to start-stop-start-stop and try to simulate the sensation by being aware of its close proximity. But this approximation only highlights the nature of awakening and not asleepening. Namely, surprise. One is always surprised to wake up, not merely because life is a gift, but because it indicates the news that one had fallen asleep, which till then had not officially registered with the office of consciousness.
He awakens to the comforting but unstable sounds of rain on the roof, thunder in the distance, the roil and tumult of running water on tin, asphalt, concrete, glass, marshy grass. The contrasting symphony of collisions blending into a familiar din that might be soporific were he not dealing with the fresh consciousness that predictably comes after four thin hours. There is renewal of the tossing and flipping, but he knows how this scene ends and eventually the covers are cast aside in something just better than disgust as he rises to face 3:52 in the morning and all that it implies.
I have yet to adjust to this life. To any part of it. I am awash in reflection, anticipation, appreciation, exhaustion, and resignation. Five parts, equal measure. I grow weary of even categorizing how I feel or what I hope for, but it’s automatic to the point where I can no longer even imagine how to avoid it. It’s nice to be too busy to notice, sometimes, fleetingly, but the schedule increases the impacts of the inevitable moments when not noticing is impossible. The next step will be reducing the headaches, or sleeping through the night, or finding a situation that can help me with either.
