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Poet deVine
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since 1999-05-26
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Hurricane Alley

0 posted 2005-01-19 09:51 PM



Insomnia Part Four

Finally after six months of drugged sleep, I threw away the pills my doctor prescribed for my insomnia. No more vacant staring daytime eyes for me! No more marshmallow brain! No more lethargy! If I can’t sleep, I will deal with it. I discovered that drugs and I don’t mix well – they want to control me and I won’t let them so we fight and for six months, they were winning. Well no more! Tonight, I’ll be my old self. Dream or not. Sleep or not. I can’t give up control of my brain again.

I found myself wondering about Esther during my drug sabbatical. I wasn’t writing a damn thing! My editor told me either I produce something or I’ll have to declare bankruptcy. That’s not an option either.

So tonight is the first night without ‘Harold’…as in the movie “Harold and Maude”. He was a quirky young guy who fell in love with an really older woman! I named my drugs that because ‘Harold’ is how I felt – like the Harold who never lived until Maude turned him onto life! So I flushed Harold down the toilet where he’s mingling with my goldfish Tanner. He died two months ago and though I tried to save him – up to giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation, I just didn’t have it in me to keep him alive. I blame Harold. He made me heart-dead!

And so I again join the late night crew..wandering around looking for something to make me sleepy. I read a little, but get bored with everyone’s work. The books are either too predictable or too unclear. I don’t have the patience to wade through paragraphs describing the ancient art of toenail clipping…which really is an exaggeration. I would LOVE a coffee table book about toenail clipping. How unusually gross and funny! Maybe I should write one – take photos of famous people clipping their toenails. I bet famous people have someone come to their house and do that – and they don’t let stray nail clippings fly around and get lodged in the carpet only to jump up and cut someone’s unsuspecting toe on a sharp edge! Sigh.

At 2 a.m., I logged onto my new laptop and joined a chat group discussion of sex after 50.  I noticed that no one really talked about the subject. Someone would enter the chat room and it would take 10 minutes for everyone else to say ‘welcome’ or ‘hi’. Then by the time that was done, someone else would announce they were leaving and it would take 10 minutes for all the goodbyes. This went on for 2 hours! I was frustrated and stopped saying hello and goodbye and then someone accused me of being sullen and booted me off.  But really, can you blame me? I’m not getting any sex and talking about it is the next best thing…well not THE next best thing, but I’m not going to discuss my intimate alone-time with total strangers!

I tried cleaning out my closets only to find that half way through, I’d be sitting holding some knick knack my brother gave me on our trip to some forgettable place, and I’d be so lost in thought, nothing would get done. And there it is. The long run on sentence! Sigh. I told my editor I wouldn’t do that again and here I am…running on. In sentence form no less. I need to be smacked with a White and Strunk.
I put up dark shades in all the rooms and decided that if I can’t sleep during normal night hours, I’d sleep whenever I could. Noonish is a good time to nap. Except that is the time when the telemarketers start their calling campaigns. And the Avon lady comes around every Tuesday at one. And the church ladies come to save my doomed soul on Wednesday and from the chiming of the doorbell, I never seem to get to rest.

Three days and nights of not sleeping and I have sworn off driving. My luck, my body would choose that moment to fall into a deep sleep. Right as I’m turning into McDonald’s. I’d take out the golden arches with a right turn and over compensate and plow into the play area sending thousands of plastic balls into the street. I’m sure it would make the local news. And my mother worries that I’ll make the front-page some day for something other than winning the Pulitzer!

Lying on my side at 2:30 p.m. I noticed that the streetlight in front of my house was not shining. It was unusually dark outside tonight. Not that I’m afraid of the dark – I can walk around my house without a single light turned on! It’s just the small sliver of light that shines at the edge of the curtain was my focus on these long nights. Something to look at besides the inside of my eyelids.

I rolled over and there she was! After all these months, Esther hadn’t changed. She stood silently by the bed, her hands by her side. She wore a light colored nightgown with a big dark splotch on the hem. In her right hand, she held scissors – that too had dark spots clinging to the blades. I didn’t need the sliver of light from the street to show me that it was blood. Dear God, I thought. What could have happened?

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1 posted 2005-01-20 12:53 PM


So go on now, what happened please - what?

Talk about a coincidence, Insomnia (my story) I wrote last night and today after remembering I had the graphic, and saw yours only when I came to post mine just now.  Now that's weird, really weird.  Maybe I will see you in my dreams who knows?  

Carpe' Diem

Poet deVine
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-26
Posts 22612
Hurricane Alley
2 posted 2005-01-27 10:43 PM




I get the point.

-30-

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