Fact vs. Fiction

Every day she sits there, just waiting to see if maybe today, it'll come. She checks over and over, again and again, but every time she comes up empty. She stands up, her chair swiveling under her momentum. Today was yet another lost day in her mind, and nothing could change that, it was midnight after all and now she had today for her luck to change. Her bed was soft, yet firm enough that it allowed her comfortable sleep. She pulled the sheets up to her neck and kicked her comforter onto the floor. The temperature was alway extreme in her room, never just right. Tonight, or should I say, this morning, it was far too hot. She lay there, staring at the shadows on her ceiling, the glow from her bedside lamp keeping her awake for awhile. Click... darkness. Finally, her eyes closed and her mind drifted away.

She leaned forward and pressed the power switch, her alarm clock still ringing somewhere in her room. She really must stop swatting it when it goes off in the morning. She had learned patience in her 25 years of existence, and it came in handy quite often, especially now. Her desktop finished loading and shortly thereafter so did her internet. A few clicks of the mouse and there she was again, staring, looking for something that just refused to be there. "It never hurts to check this early," she thought closing the screen in dismay. So went her morning routine: Swat alarm clock, check email, use bathroom, clean up, eat breakfast and be off to work by 7:47 on the dot.

Work was no picnic either. She never knew what she was going to do on any given day. She wasn't trained in anything specific so she just did whatever the professionals told her to. Some days that meant backing up files, other days it meant minding her own business while everyone rushed to get things finished around her. Today was one of those days. Today was the worst kind of torture. She always had her computer with her no matter where she went, so the days when she had nothing to do, she sat and she stared. "It'll come today." but it didn't. It didn't come this morning, it didn't come during work, and it most certainly didn't come after she went home.

Walking down the hallway after dinner, she caught a glimpse of someone in the mirror. It wasn't her. It couldn't be, she wasn't old or tired. She looked closer and began to see familiar features: there was a hint of green in her eyes. A freckle on the tip of her nose. "Why?" She knew precisely why. She knew that all this waiting and hoping was not an act of optimism, but an act of desperation. She had to end it, though she wasn't sure how. "Just tonight," she though, "Tonight and it's over."

11:50. Ten more minutes of agony and she would be finished, rid of this disease forever. She checked again... nothing. By now she wanted there to be nothing, she didn't want something because something would only prolong her agony, start it all over again in a vicious never-ending cycle. "Don't be there," she whispered as she refreshed the page yet again. "Don't be there." Five minutes were all that were left of the day, five minutes. She stood up, wringing her hands nervously as her bare feet carried her again and again across the tweed carpet. "I won't do it. I won't, not until midnight. Then it'll all be over."

12:00. She wasn't still enough to sit so she leaned down placing her right index finger atop the mouse. "Harder," she thought and the mouse responded instantly. Her screen loaded and there it was, exactly what she had been waiting for, nothing. A deep breath passed between her lips as she sat down on the edge of her bed. Seconds later she was out.

12:01. It came at 12:01 that morning, the message she had looked for all along. It said everything she had hoped it would say. It contained the one thing that would've ended her suffering had she not chosen to end it herself. She never saw it though. She didn't wake up when her sister ran in yelling at 8:15 in the morning. She didn't wake up when the paramedics tried to revive her. The aspirin had done its job and taken her pain away. As they wheeled her out, her sister glanced at the open laptop still on the desk. She moved the mouse. There was one new message in the Inbox. Open. "I'm Sorry."

Who needs sleep?

"Can't sleep," I ask politely.
"No. I"m doing work though, actually."
"Oh, I'm doing this because I can't sleep. If I turn a light on to read, I might as well kiss sleep goodbye. There's nothing on tv, not that I watch much anyway but... that leaves me with this."
"You don't need a light to be on your computer?"
"Nope. :) The glow from the screen illuminates the keyboard."
"Oh."
"So, what are you working on?"
No answer... five minutes later, still no answer.

Maybe she's busy. Maybe she fell asleep. No you idiot, she probably doesn't want to talk to you because she doesn't like you. Oh! New comment!

"I'm just working on a bunch of different things, nothing specific."

"Oh, I see. Look, I'm really enjoying this, but if you don't want me to bother you anymore I can get off..."

"What? Oh, no it's fine. It's a distraction, a pleasant one at that. I really don't mind at all."

She minds, I know she minds. I wouldn't want to talk to me at 2 in the morning if I was doing work. I really should let her be... oh but I can't, I want to talk...

"Ok, but um, you know stop me at any time. So, it's 2:15, what does that make it where you are?"

"It's 1:15 here. Why aren't you sleeping again?"

"I just can't. I've always been a bit of an insomniac. you know what I wish though..."

"No, what?"

"I wish I could pull my truck out of the garage, drive to the end of the block, park and just chill in the bed, under the stars. I really wish I could."

"Why don't you then? It sounds nice to me too."

"My parents would freak if I just left in the middle of the night. The only time I can actually do that is when my friends are here and we stay up all night."

"Oh, I see. But I guess if you were out under the stars we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?"

"No, we wouldn't. Oh shit, my computer's about to die. Could we continue this tomorrow?"

"Sure thing. Good luck sleeping!"

"Thanks and good luck with your work."

That's a conversation I had a while ago with a friend of mine, the italics represent my though process. If you can't sleep and you can't think of anything to do, get in touch with me during the wee hours of the night. Chances are I'm still awake and I'm really quite reasonable during those hours.