Lack of sleep

This story was written and published in a magazine a year or so ago. This is a translation and since I'm not a native speaker you may encounter some weird word formations. Please rate and comment

The first morning train devoured me right on schedule. It was a few minutes after 5 AM when we started our voyage through guts of metropolis. I'm nothing but a bacteria in the digestive system of a parasite, I thought wearily and looked at the confusing double reflection of my own unshaven cheeks. Well, I caught at least two hours of sleep last night. Caught and beat to death is more like it, the dark blue rings under my eyes mocked me.
I gave a silent nod of greeting to a handful of companions. Two men and woman in gray business suits, the typical uniform of soldiers who fight battles with cold and sleepy mornings. Woman, whose hair was badly dyed and middle aged man with nicotine stained fingers were sitting next to each other while the other man's crew-cut head was swaying to the rhythm of train tracks.
The train stopped at the station and man with a briefcase widely yawned, making nicotine yellowish teeth visible from afar. A moment later the woman next to him sympathetically, yet ladylike , repeated the same process . Another universal greeting of the early risers , I thought fighting with the unconscious smile which was interrupted just in time by my own fully fledged yawn . That's the only mean of protest that's left for the body protest at these times. We do not sleep and do not get up, we simply are. We are inventing new ways to stretch the time, bind it together put some sense in it. And when the eyelids start to close, begging for rest , we apologize, drink coffee and splash our faces with cold water, fearing such an open vulnerability of our tired , oh so tired selfs.  I stared into the play of the ring on woman's hand; she was spinning it mercilessly while monitoring the contours of the intestinal wall of the city we were driving through. The skin of her ring finger was the same red as the whites of her eyes, which housed gentle , dreamy gray irises . These eyes must belong to someone who remembers the name of their first pet and who secretly cries at the sunsets, I thought with admiration . The man beside her accidentally brushed her forearm and she just kept spinning precious metal against her middle-aged skin, although somewhat faster .
She stared at her reflection somewhere to the left when her jaw muscles tensed indicating another round of yawning just when the happy yellowish parasite opened its mouth to another empty station. This time she yawned even wider than her nicotine stained companion, almost vulgar. I diverted my gaze out of politeness, but when I looked back, she was still yawning, and how! The pale flesh of the woman's lips retreated over her teeth, pale gums and even further, to the nose, wrapping itself up like the rug . The escape of flesh continued over the cheekbones, then the forehead , leaving behind clean white bones. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, but it was more out of a formality. For some reason I wasn't as confused as the situation demanded, in fact, I had a strange feeling of deja vu.
The man next to her also seemed calm, so calm that his reaction was that of a man who is bored to death- yawning. His shoulders tensed, the skin on his neck tightened and once again I had the honor to see all of his dentures, and not just that. As it was with the woman, the skin pulled free from his face and up in a neat move, as if it could hardly wait to get out of community with bones. The flesh that was once his face was now around his neck, looking like some horrible hood .
Train bounced and picked more speed; I noticed we weren't stopping at stations anymore. The silence was broken by a soft thud made by woman's nasal bone which separated from the cavity and fell on the shoe of her nearest companion . " I'm sorry," she said, still spinning her ring just as vigorously " I don't sleep well lately." Her jaw creaked in an effort of lipless smile " It's all right," replied the man's skull while our remote companion's crew cut lazily touched his collar.
" It is a disease of our time , insomnia. " spoke the woman again "I've been waiting for hours to fall asleep and most of the time I get scared. Scared of the dark, I know it's silly. You see, as a little girl I always slept with the lights on. And it continued later... But my husband can not sleep with the light, it bothers him terribly and the power bill was enormous. So I spend the night lying beside him and waiting for my personal darkness to deliver me from the darkness of the night. It doesn't come often, but perhaps... Perhaps now it's here to stay.“ She took off her wedding ring and held it up to her the unusual gray eyes, looking curiously through the golden infinity. The distant companion replied with a polite cough on this slice of intimacy, and I could not help but notice the long mark on the back of his skull, the memory of the memory of some nasty accident .
"I fully understand your husband , ma'am. " sad the heavy smoker guy next to her "I too can't sleep with the light on. Or the music, traffic, for that matter. Voices, barking... I can not sleep at all , to be honest. I spent the night sitting on the bed beside her while she slept, lighting one cigarette after the other until dawn. She complained that the curtains stink and when I burned a hole in the blanket, until she one day she took the kids and the dog and left. I still smoke, I burned almost all damn blankets. The cigarette ember is the only light I can stand."
Remote companion squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, apparently it was too early for confessions for his taste. Empty headed I stared down at my hands and then I felt it. It was coming from the lower part of the lungs, from the depths , primordial and unstoppable, as it usually does. The pressure in the ears deepened, tongue retreated to the palate and I tried to suppress it with all my strength. All skulls turned toward me. The woman finally tucked the ring into her purse and the man beside her fished out of his pocket a crumpled pack of cigarettes. It is forbidden to smoke in the train, flashed through my head as my body fought against me. Before I shut my eyes I saw all three polished skulls nodding sympathetically.
" The feeling is like when you take off your winter jacket in a warm room. " the distant passenger spoke for the first time. His voice was pleasant and deep, he could easily work as an anchor man. „You don't need it. Not any more. " Instead of punctuation his sentence ended with a soft sound as his nose bone freed itself from the skull. I surrendered to the power of breathing which parted my lips for the last time.
It was easy. When a mole on my nose touched the nape of my neck I carefully ran my fingers across what I used to call a face. The bones were dry and warm, like a turtle shell, not unpleasant at all. I smiled at the others and tore off my nasal bone in one quick motion. I put it in my pocket, like one does when he comes across an interesting shell at the beach.
The man inhaled cigarette smoke through his teeth, looking eerily like one of the anti-smoking campaigns. The woman absently studied the centimeter of skin where her ring stood, and by the rustle you could tell that the third passenger just opened the newspaper.
"Is this the end?" I asked just to say something. Our cheerful parasite-train has apparently completely forgotten about the stations. "The end means that there is a beginning," noted the distant commuter without looking up from his newspaper. " This is a circle line, my friend, chasing it's tail is all it does. Through eternity." No It didn't upset me as much as it probably should. I tried to run my fingers through my hair and I had laughed to myself when they slipped over the smooth bone .
I almost forgot how it is, but this is remind me of falling asleep. Relentless, dark relief. Maybe I am sleeping. Maybe we're all finally sleeping and we will do it until we make up for all blood-shot dawns, trembling hands, tongues scolded by coffee. We'll sleep through all the questions, tasks, obligations. And when we wake up our skin will dutifully return to its place and we'll be younger and fresher and prettier and everyone, everyone will fall in love with us .
And if that doesn't happen, I thought to myself, this really isn't a bad way to spend eternity. As if hearing my thoughts, the yellow parasite whose insides we inhabited slightly slowed down. Light reflected from four identical skulls danced in the windows when I finally manage, without eyelids to close my eyes.

Author's Note

I have absolutely no idea what genre is this. Help?

Reviews

[CosminDZS]

A solid story with some good motifs and themes. One thing I would suggest is building up your primary character more, you seem to reveal details about the others while leaving the protagonist with a blank state. Insomnia is a nasty bug and it was an interesting way to tie it with the decay of human life and how boredom seems to envelope the city.

[tootles]

thank you for the review :) When I was first writing it, my goal was to leave the protagonist blank, to make him your everyday man. But looking back, I might as well rewrite it this way

[CosminDZS]

Vagueness is good, yet you still want to keep the humanity in the main character, give him some quirks, so that the reader can be sitting in the train by his side.