Asleep

This is something I wrote for this subject. First original post on this blog:

"You noticed as a child that every night you can’t sleep, a disaster occurs somewhere in the world. You’ve been having chronic insomnia for weeks now. Something big is coming."

I am a human measuring tool for loss of life. Instead of degrees like a thermometer, I measure in time of no sleep. Until now longest I've gone is 2 days without sleep.

It's been two weeks now and I feel like I'm dying. I find myself rather excited at the thought. During the first week I was really afraid. One day of no sleep usually means 1000 people dead. That's an average of course, but the growth is not geometrical, it's exponential!

When you have insomnia you are never asleep, but you are never really awake either. There's this quote from fight club : "With insomnia nothing's real. Everything's far away. Everything's a copy of a copy of a copy.". I think I understand it now.

I haven't left the house in 4 days. When I see children or families I tend to start crying uncontrollably. I started praying a week into it. Not being a religious man I tried everyone, even went so far as to buy a book that listed religions and tried all the names that were in there. I even tried the Sun. Hopefully they all understand English, but if they don't maybe they aren't very powerful and can go fuck themselves because they won't be able to help in this, right?

I watch Netflix and HBO Go and try to focus while I re-watch The Office and Friends for the 10th time with a separate TV that is on a big news channel. I'm on the second season of The Office - my personal favorite. From previous experiences I've noticed the relief is instantaneous to whatever happens. After, I just have to watch the news to see what happened. And I need to know, that is basically the only reason I don't take a flying leap off the building. I've gone through different scenarios and I have my bets hedged on 3 possible scenarios: nuclear war, biological warfare or a meteorite. Any of these qualify as an extinction level event.

And I feel it finally, it's like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders. I tense up so hard my muscles go into spasms as I unmute the news channel to hear an overly tanned older way-too-fit-for-his-age presenter announce a press conference starting now. Image switches to a white House spokesman looking incredibly pleased with himself. I find myself wishing for the power to punch people through the television. Seems like a much more useful skill about now. I hear the idiot tell us that he is incredibly happy to announce that humanity has finally made contact with an alien life form using a faster-than-light device found on Mars. That after considerable thought and communication on both sides, the world leaders have shared Earth's location relative to the Milky Way. That the aliens have sent ships that are en route to Earth. They will arrive in a few hours and we will get the help we need to solve our many of our problems. Earth will be transformed into a paradise.

I have a feeling that their definition of paradise is different, so I start laughing and close the feed.

As the elevator reaches the last of the building it seems to me I've aged about 20 years. There is a ladder that is easy to climb to the roof. As I look up it seems that I can see the alien spaceship lights getting closer. They bring death for a large part of humanity at least and only I know it. Of course it's my sleep deprived mind, not actual lights. I try to feel sadness but I find myself incapable. Like a well from which all the water has been removed, I'm all dried up. If they do bring paradise I want no place in it, for the price they ask is too high by far. As I take the final step over the ledge I am happy and there is only one thought buzzing through my head - "Finally, time to sleep!".