Most nights I find myself in a staring contest with the ceiling fan. I try and count every circular motion. My eyes can never keep up. I can remember each and every time how it feels to fail at this. I am always sure I have lost count before.
The hours tick by, they roll over like tumbling dice. The television watches me fall asleep. The bathroom door is ajar; the lights – switched on. I hear a muffled sound, and I look around, in vain, for the source – like a confused mongrel. Right then, a well-dressed man screams on television, asking me to please drink Pepsi and be happy like I am supposed to.
I know better though. I know things. I read stuff. I have 3G. TED talks to me too. In fact, things will be fine if I can just find a way to get some sleep. So I eye the books stacked up in a pile by the dressing table. I look at them, lovingly, but I don’t reach out to them. Where once, in-between these sun-burnt pages, resided many an escape route now rots a slew of bitter truths that I want nothing to do with.
I toss and turn on the bed, looking for precious sleep.
Then, I smell something burning. I wonder if it is the security guard outside, starting a fire to keep away the mosquitoes. Maybe I have a fever. Perhaps the sofa in the hall is on fire. Now I panic a little. I wish I had a Pepsi in my hand.
Begrudgingly, I squeeze my eyes shut, seeking blankness and for some reason – noticing that the room smells like butter. The air inside tastes like iron rust. As I begin to arrive at strange conclusions, out they come – in motley crews, the bloodthirsty mosquitoes. I often make mountains out of molehills when I run out of meaningful things to feel insecure, sad or angry about. Not today though. I don’t mind the mosquitoes drawing a little blood. Not at all.
I know it’s a good day when there are only mosquito bites to complain about. I also know it’s going to be a while for the morning to distract me.
How I ache for her moaning sounds – a garbled and beautiful mess of dew-scented melodies.
Hours go by, and still – no luck. No chance of sleep. No possibility of light. Nothing. Only the strange, muffled sound seems to be getting louder.
I get off the bed and saunter towards the door, hoping that an alien abduction is in progress. Much to my dismay, I trace its source to the engine room in the building next door. It wasn’t even a mystery, much less an opportunity for intergalactic travel. I am still here, swaddled in-between clean sheets, begging the night to deliver me. I promise to spill my secrets while succumbing to its depths.
I just want to sleep, counting last year’s rain. I wish I can close my eyes, reciting lyrics to soundtracks of summers gone by, drifting into starless skies.
Un-break me, beloved, thankless and unmerciful night. Un-wound me.
(Images- Pixabay)
Very relatable – the silence of the night is scary sometimes.
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I m glad it resonated, comrade. I wish you the best in wrestling comfort from the night, it does have its share if we can oxygenate the silence I suppose.
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Are you kidding?!!!
Mosquitoes drive me fucking crazy!!!
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Hehe to each their own cup of sorrow to runneth over, bud!
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O how the seconds feel like hours. Yep.
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(cues bob dylan track)
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and then you are drawn to the internet ocean and the need to go blog surfing in search of other word starved insomniacs and some time later discover a mindless peace that passes for sleep…
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“Mindless peace” – perfectly encapsulated, comrade tio
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I like it!
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‘Linear velocity of fan blades.’ How I know it. Some days I curse that we are thinking, reasoning beings. It would be easier to just be a butterfly whose purpose is simply to drift from flower to flower, drinking nectar, soaring on the breeze, and occasionally laying an egg. To just. Be. That.
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So unbearably beautiful that would be, Shannon!
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Amazing!:) Writers and their agonies and ecstasies…
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Thanks radhika. it always lingers in extremes, doesn’t it. Well, as if we d want it any other way. (clink)
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It’s the creative condition really! And the highs make it all worthwhile! Cheers! 🙂
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Alien abduction!
Every. Single. Time.
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Limp knuckle bump. Sigh I know.
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There have been a few times when I toss around because there is something in my head. And until I can put it somewhere — either on paper or in a digital form — I just keep feeling restless. But after committing thoughts to written words, it feels nice, I dare say, even peaceful.
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Yeah, it’s like that halfway point between rage and serenity (to paraphrase Professor X from X-men)
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I m glad you find contentment in content (sometimes I am a horrible person)
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Huh? What! You’re not horrible!
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For that lame content reference I meant, comrade
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Kafka is reborn and lives in Chennai now…. 🙂
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Yikes that’s very humbling (and konjam frightening), nandri comrade
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how well you put it:)as always…
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D’awww you, thanks
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sacchi baat hai
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Amazingly written!
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Merci kritika
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I was going to write something connecting butterflies to sleeplessness, and as I read down the comments, I realize I already had! That’s just weird.
As I age, sleep comes to me in two stretches, one evening nap and an early morning nap sandwiching a stretch of alert questioning and pondering. The Mister has it worse. He actually gets up and studies math for several hours before having a ‘little nap’ before going into work for the day. I don’t know how he doesn’t splat audibly into a puddle of drool at some important meeting (I would).
‘Regurgitating the peace.’ It is exactly why I will sit in a most uncomfortable position while I shut my eyes for a couple of minutes. It keeps me from crashing into a deep sleep, hence making me the Wicked Bitch of the West for the remainder of the day (my family reminds me of this). I don’t do naps. But I do love to lay on my swing and listen to the birdies in the middle of the day, drifting off just long enough to hit that reset button. Even better when one my kids is laying on me, making a limb fall to sleep as well.
Nope. Don’t want to get too comfortable. Cheers to sleepless nights and new friends, and thoughtful blog posts to bridge the two. 😀
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What a fantastic stream of consciousness, dear Shannon! Lemon tea reverse snort-worthy quips about the Mister and Wickedness hehehe I like your twinfold napping sessions, ideally at my age it should have happened. Still though, I just can’t seem to find peace in day-sleep.
Cheers to peach trees, and iridescent conversations!
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You capture brilliantly the frustration and flow of thoughts that come with the inability to sleep. I think my favorite part: “Begrudgingly you squeeze your eyes shut, seeking blankness. But now the room smells like butter.” That just so sums it up. The mind and senses seeking something, anything. The aroma of butter, but is it butter? Is it just an auditory hallucination? If so, should one be worried that one is having an auditory hallucination? What else smells like butter?
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Thank you ET. Auditory hallucination sounds perfect, that’s exactly what it is. Butter is but a fleeting thought process.
I always smell it when I feel troubled.I am pretty sure it’s because a TV version of Hansel and Gretel had me terrified as a kid. It was when the the siblings saw the witch apply butter to the distinctly-proportioned child before shoving him into the oven. Scars, I tell you. Such jerks.
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A lovely read.. Specially this last line.. “The birds follow routines because they add to the balance of their environments. We do so because it is convenient ” so very true and meaningful and great clicks.. 👌
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Thanks Neede! I am not separating myself from this behaviour, mind you
Also, thank you for being a residential bird too in this blog, your kindness is appreciated (big smile)!
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Ha ha ha I love it.. Residential bird… 👌😄😉😉
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beautiful read all through… I find myself staring at the carefree sleep of the owlet again n again…. how adorable ….the poses and the radiating innocence…. you have captured it all so well …. the photographs, the thoughts and your words!!
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Thank you, dear friend, I am happy the owlets made you happy! Wherever you are, you should find the nearest owlet and say hello too (smile).
Thanks again for your kind words.
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🙂 Hope I will find one soon! 🙂 Thanks to you CB for I really enjoy reading your blog!
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Thank you, birdie in hues…come back always! (tips hat)
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You are quite THE amazing
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Aww shucks, how very kind! Thank you Karen!
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Ahhhh simply superb… …loved it…they look sooo good sleeping…
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Love this post! Did you post this just to get me to write a third musing on the matter? Assuming you did, you should know that I still can’t seem to get through an entire night without 2-3 hours in between! It’s become my reading time, a book called ‘Paradise Found’ about the history of nature in America the last 500 years. It’s pretty sad…don’t know why I’m so gripped to it. It’s like trying to turn away when a train is about to hit a car. You just can’t help but look!!
PS – Going to first TKD tourney the weekend after. Gonna be sparring with strangers for the first time with an orange belt…hoping I don’t get my butt kicked. I think that’s what’s waking me up. 😀
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Awww thanks Shannon! And yes, anything to get you to write about kicking butt hehe. Do write in detail about apologising to strangers’ kids. Tell them their mommy and daddy learnt a valuable lesson from the business end of a Shannon spin kick (giggles)
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2 AM
The early black
Is still unstirred
By yawning morning.
The ceiling fills
With predatory thoughts,
Like quiet children
Come to play
Their silent games,
Poking sticks into
Dark passages
Of forgotten memories;
Memories like frightened mice
That scurry off in panic.
The sadly moaning bell
Sixty years ago on a lonely buoy
Shrugging its shoulders
In a choppy sea.
A special purple
Strangely found on both
An apron and a stub of clay
In kindergarten.
The round eyed stare
Frozen to my mother’s face
As cancer pain
Prodded her to certain death.
A pet white rat curled in snooze
On my pillow by my cheek.
The falling crescent moon
Smiles in my window
Like my long gone mother
Soothing me
Back to the peace of sleep.
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Beautiful, like a wild cloud, drifting with balloons and making them feel at home.
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