Insomnia

You slump into a couch, exhausted. A host of thoughts flits by--faces, names, faces with names, nameless faces, random names, random faces--and your tired mind shuts down for the briefest of moments.

What was it she said? Tragic. What was it he said? Flatulent. He and she--they blur, their words and voices commingle, first; next, their words turn into a colloquy of opposites; and finally, the dialogue booms into a cacophony of sounds. You close your eyes. That girl could have been you.

Ah, to be lethargic, ah to be nothing.

But the evening waits, the day is not done. Night is not only for counting the stars, it is also for mapping the syzygy of circles and squares that surround us each day, that set us looking for what is not there, for what could be there, that keep us on our toes, aghast and running, that make us feel alive, that make us stop and notice. For those of us who recognize the ephemeral, the ubiquitous is seldom--if ever--what it appears to be. Our heads are filled with imagery, color, tune.

You wonder how long the night is going to be, tonight.

You turn on Chopin and mull over the pictures in your head: the bright lights of the city you ride across each day, the woman selling hot cakes, the looming figure of a bright-eyed man, the misplaced, baroque facade of an old building, the puddles in side walks, the look of worry on a friend's face, an unlit street lamp. You run your fingers over the texture of words and you realize that sleep will be elusive tonight, the way it often is when your mind is wide awake the way it is now. The goal is to be blithe; the reality seldom lives up to the conjured. We are thinking beings, counting on the clemency of paradoxes. We breathe love like air, but we find it discombobulating. Our quest for spontaneity leaves us planning where to go next.

What time is it, you wonder. The music has stopped. The night is just as dark as it was when the first strains of Chopin wafted into your ears, but you've already filled the hours with the scenes of the day. The questions remain: in what context did he say what he said? Did you say the things you wanted to say the way you should have said them? Did you say what you had meant to say?

He throws figures at you and you become a shadow. Mute, sighing.

You play with the idea of writing a letter. You start writing it, in your head, with the night stretching ahead of you like a long, confused road.