Counting Sheep

This short story shows what goes on in the mind of a chronic insomniac.

Three. Four. Five.

She watched the fluffy white sheep jump over the rickety wooden fence and scamper off into the green, green field. The sleeping pills weren't working. Counting sheep was always an option.

They're so fluffy, she thought to herself. Reminds me of the cotton candy we got at the fair last summer. Except the cotton candy was pink.

Six. Seven. Eight.

Pink was Hannah's favorite color. She just had to have a pink dress with a matching pink bow for her dark blonde hair this Easter. She probably had fifty or sixty bows already.

Sixty. Sixty-one. Sixty-two. No, that wasn't right. Where was she again?

She was in bed. Trying to sleep. She heard the slow steady breathing coming from her husband Easton as he slept beside her. Easton could sleep through anything. He always slept through Hannah's crying and midnight feedings when she was a baby.

Nine. Ten. Eleven. Okay, the sheep were back on track.

Danny had broken a piece of his train track that went with his plastic train set. He was obsessed with trains! She had never seen a six-year-old so focused on one particular thing!

Twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

Wow! Fourteen. She couldn't believe that her niece Nora would be fourteen-years-old next week. What in the world could she get her? Teenagers were so into technology these days.

Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.

Oh my goodness! She had completely forgotten that her parents' anniversary was on the seventeenth. How many years had they been married now? Thirty-four or thirty-five?

Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Wait, wait. The numbers were off again.

Hannah was doing so well with learning her numbers. She was going to breeze through kindergarten when the time came.

Time? Time? Propping herself up on one elbow, she squinted at the red numerals on the digital clock across the room. 2:25 a.m. and she was STILL awake.

Pounding the middle of her pillow, she lay her head back down, sighed deeply and began to watch the sheep in her mind's eye once again.

Easton Marshall cinched his robe tightly about his waist and shook his head to remove the cobwebs.

"Not again," he grumbled. Shuffling to the kitchen, he craved the smell and taste of hot coffee yet a different smell assaulted his senses.

"Sharon, what are you doing, honey?" The clock on the microwave stated 3:10 a.m.

"I got so tired of counting those damn sheep! Would you like a lamb chop?"

Author's Note

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