Write About Being Unable to Sleep

The clock blinks red.  3:15.  3:15.  3:15.  3:16.

With a sigh, I roll over and yank the covers over my feet but it all feels wrong.  I can sense the numbers behind me.  Determined, I close my eyes and will my brain to stop thinking.  Hours pass but still I can't sleep.  Defeated, I roll back and look.

3:18.

I have been playing this torturous game with the clock since 11:45.  For some reason, my mind will not shut off tonight.  Sleep is kept at bay by my roiling thoughts and my harsh mutterings.  It seems the more I reach for it, the farther it eludes me.

When I was a child and could not sleep, I would open my window a crack, roll on my right side, slip both hands under my pillow and close my eyes.  The open window was for Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.  It was my invitation for them to join me.  The hands under my pillow were uncomfortable but comforting.  Without fail, they triggered the dream of flying over NeverNeverLand.  Cannon-balling through clouds, soaring over the Mermaid Lagoon, the wind twisting my satin blue nightgown between my legs.

But I had left Peter far behind.  My brain had forgotten all these nighttime signs and rituals.  Now I battled the clock convinced that the meager weapons of childhood were helpless against its blinking power.

3:19.  3:19.  3:19

3:20.

I lay on my back and watched the shadows on the ceiling.  As a child, I saw monsters and unicorns.  I talked to these dark images and watched them schlump across the walls.  Now all I saw was plaster and spackle, dust and paint.  My old friends were probably there, waiting to entertain me, but I was too busy locked in battle with time to notice.  Instead of engaging my mind, harnessing my imagination, I fought to throttle it, to bend it to my will, to make it shut off like at light.  But tonight, I would realize that somethings need to be rocked to sleep.  Somethings require a gentle touch and a tease.  Perhaps, I had forgotten what I knew as a child.  That night was a time to open your mind to the impossible.  A time of un-control.

3:22.  But I didn't even notice.  My monsters peered down at me, watching my lids droop slowly, slowly.  They frolicked above me.  Now a cup of coffee, then the steam, then a face.  Then, sweet nothing.