"Oh God. What am I still doing up?"
It's 4:30am out in Kalamazoo Michigan as I peer out my window at the dark, crisp April night. I hear birds chirping happily over the ever-present hum of traffic on US-131 as I stare at the pair of radio towers in the distance, brightening up the night sky with their red lights, which so calmly flash like the heartbeat of a child sound asleep.
Sleep. Why can't I sleep? The darkened windows of the apartments across the way from my bedroom window mock me. They are all asleep and yet I cannot even close my eyes. The bed lies there. Comfortable, beckoning me to get inside, get all cozy, and let it take me to a magical faraway land of dreams and peace. Let it take me away from this cold April night, to a warm sunny place, where I don't have a care in the world. A place where I make the rules, and where I control everything. Take me away from this harsh world where I am forced to punch in, leave late, drive the speed limit, pay my taxes, and live by everyone elses rules. Why can it not take me there tonight?
As I gaze down upon it I ask it what it wants from me. Have I offended it? Angered it in some arrogant way? Or does it tire of me? Does it wish to be awake and jump and be merry? Does the caffeine race through its veins and keep it stirring under me as I have stirred upon it so many times in the past? I look at the bed with desperate eyes and plead. I ask for its forgiveness and beg for it to grant me what it has so thoughtlessly given and I have so carelessly taken from it in the many years that we have been together. I beg and beg. And do you know what it says in return?
Nothing.
It's just a stupid bed. It can't answer me.
Did I expect it to? Am I that tired? Could it be that my sense of logic has somehow through the grace of luck fallen asleep and left the rest of my body awake and without intellegence? It must have awakened, because it is quietly returning to me. Though it seems distant. Muffled. As if it is yelling to me from a long distance, over the hum of US-131, over the chirping of birds, and over the pounding of the keyboard.
The keyboard.
I will never sleep again. My eyes are restrained. Chained open, against their will. I can feel the struggle. The conflict. They want to keep looking at this screen, but the bed is calling.
No it isn't.
I'm losing my ability to function. My ability to type is leaving me slowly, like the teenager sneaking past her parents room at 3am, trying not to alert them to the fact that she's leaving. I need to sleep. My body is ready to collapse. The only thing keeping me up is the caffeine. It's holding my body up like a marionette. I can't focus. I can't concentrate. My mind sounds as if its talking to me at a party with a constant low bass beat, over crowds of people. I see its lips moving, but I don't hear it. It's screaming now. I almost hear it.
It says, "Get off the bloody computer!!"
Oh. Oh yeah. Ok. Goodnight...
It's 4:30am out in Kalamazoo Michigan as I peer out my window at the dark, crisp April night. I hear birds chirping happily over the ever-present hum of traffic on US-131 as I stare at the pair of radio towers in the distance, brightening up the night sky with their red lights, which so calmly flash like the heartbeat of a child sound asleep.
Sleep. Why can't I sleep? The darkened windows of the apartments across the way from my bedroom window mock me. They are all asleep and yet I cannot even close my eyes. The bed lies there. Comfortable, beckoning me to get inside, get all cozy, and let it take me to a magical faraway land of dreams and peace. Let it take me away from this cold April night, to a warm sunny place, where I don't have a care in the world. A place where I make the rules, and where I control everything. Take me away from this harsh world where I am forced to punch in, leave late, drive the speed limit, pay my taxes, and live by everyone elses rules. Why can it not take me there tonight?
As I gaze down upon it I ask it what it wants from me. Have I offended it? Angered it in some arrogant way? Or does it tire of me? Does it wish to be awake and jump and be merry? Does the caffeine race through its veins and keep it stirring under me as I have stirred upon it so many times in the past? I look at the bed with desperate eyes and plead. I ask for its forgiveness and beg for it to grant me what it has so thoughtlessly given and I have so carelessly taken from it in the many years that we have been together. I beg and beg. And do you know what it says in return?
Nothing.
It's just a stupid bed. It can't answer me.
Did I expect it to? Am I that tired? Could it be that my sense of logic has somehow through the grace of luck fallen asleep and left the rest of my body awake and without intellegence? It must have awakened, because it is quietly returning to me. Though it seems distant. Muffled. As if it is yelling to me from a long distance, over the hum of US-131, over the chirping of birds, and over the pounding of the keyboard.
The keyboard.
I will never sleep again. My eyes are restrained. Chained open, against their will. I can feel the struggle. The conflict. They want to keep looking at this screen, but the bed is calling.
No it isn't.
I'm losing my ability to function. My ability to type is leaving me slowly, like the teenager sneaking past her parents room at 3am, trying not to alert them to the fact that she's leaving. I need to sleep. My body is ready to collapse. The only thing keeping me up is the caffeine. It's holding my body up like a marionette. I can't focus. I can't concentrate. My mind sounds as if its talking to me at a party with a constant low bass beat, over crowds of people. I see its lips moving, but I don't hear it. It's screaming now. I almost hear it.
It says, "Get off the bloody computer!!"
Oh. Oh yeah. Ok. Goodnight...
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