Insomnia

Did this for a school assignment recently. We were supposed to describe a place, give the reader the feeling of 'being there'.

In the small hours, the main road becomes an old photograph, underexposed and tinted coolly by the street lights. Where normally cars and trucks would roar past well above the speed limit, all that remains is the low hum of powerlines. Occasionally headlights will loom in the distance, catching you in an awkward squint as your ears are filled with the accompanying growling of an engine. They pass quickly and never notice you.

The houses, though, the houses know who you are and where you've been. Your own eyes stare back at you from behind a thousand windows, though with no voice their intent remains ambiguous. This time is yours. You are the last survivor of the day but the colour is draining from your reality too.

Those shoes crossing into your lower periphery on a steady beat - look down, they're yours. For as long as you wander under pendulous concrete clouds you'll make no sound. Nobody can see you but your reflection, so how real are you at this moment? Remember to breathe; the air is warm and sweet on your tongue.

Stay on the pavement - the grass is damp, and even if the beads hanging off every blade are invisible, you can smell that familiar morning-on-the-farm wetness. Keep your eyes open; you can see more than you think by the time your fingertips lose sensation. Even things that aren't there.

And you never even knew there were so many different shades of black. The insomniac can name every tone you see.

The moon is but a glowing sliver in the sky, a tiny rip in the stitching of the clouds' heavy canopy. It's enough to bathe the worn road in a pale blanket of light but far too little to be guided by in the abyss that is the darkened daytime. Remind yourself that the world is the same as it was when you saw in colour; the sepia picket fences and gardens, once illuminated under the sun as a grounded rainbow, will find their rest as they do their waking hours. The flowerbeds and the gutters and the empty carparks know no time.

Your sense of direction eludes you as you stray from suburbia and the unwavering amber lights suspended over the pavement take a deep breath. Stop teasing space. She doesn't like the way you balance on the border between sanity and losing yourself to the night. She'll draw you in.

Television static from a pulsing room to your right catches your attention. In the ritualistic nightly death of humanity, it seems a second soul was spared, kept from the comfort of dreamy slumber and forced into an eternal waking nightmare. Between the unnaturally still curtains you can almost make out a figure with arms and legs and a head. He's perched on the edge of something bare, his expressionless face flashing with the tv.

Walk slowly. Never mind the dampness of the grass now.

He's rocking back and forth, a jerky movement so slight it's only noticeable when you dig your heels into spongy ground to steady yourself. With your nose pressed against the window and a ring of condensation obscuring spots in the front room, you peer inside and try to catch the nightwalker's gaze.

His eyelids flutter shut momentarily, then snap open, and he's staring straight through you. A grim smile creeps across his lips, pulling them taught and you can almost make out the cracks in his dry flesh. You nod; he can't sleep either.

Reviews

[Bertie]

Wow, this is one of the best peieces i'[ve ver read, its hard to capture a moment which is entirely personal but at the same time a reflection of a lot of peoples feelings..
Good writing :)

[James Watts]

Nice work. I'm impresssed.

[goldfishgirl]

I loved this, you did a great job of describing what it is like when you can't sleep.

I particularly liked this part:

"And you never even knew there were so many different shades of black. The insomniac can name every tone you see."


Really well written.