After hours-I

Sunday, August 14, 2016

After hours-I

I lean back comfortably on the lounge chaise. As comfortable as I could be anyway. The subjectivity of the term 'comfort' strikes you a lot harder when you have seen nights of drunken wish-washing with not a moment's bodily rest. The subjectivity of it all when you realise that insomnia and anxiety treat your body like their nesting cage. I thought back on the night I decided to sit at my old, rickety writing desk, a glass of wonder in one hand and a pen in the other. All I could manage with the pitter patter of the rain all night was a few doodles and the constant scribbling of his name next to mine. Not something I could turn in to my editor the coming Monday, could I?

I'm pulled back into the present as I think about sleep and the tumultuous relationship we shared. Sleep? Sleep is that that eludes me. There is a foggy sensation that envelopes my head. Sleep? I wonder again. But it's only the placebo effect. The discomfort is beginning to wear me down and the tingling cold makes me want to curl up and sleep. Remember the time we just could? I pull myself together and start pacing up and down the room with a soliloquy in mind. Maybe turning up the music a bit will help. I break into a tune as I take a bite out of a cold, day-old pizza. The taste lingers in my mouth just long enough for me to feel my body slacken in comfort. Signs. Music. Food. Thoughts. That was a definitely a lot of food on my plate, no pun intended of course. I was bound to slip into a night's worth of rest. I wipe the crumbs on my hand against the side of my skirt and find two old movie stubs from the time we took on the night together. I still could, couldn't I? The allure of a new beginning to breathe in the art in the gallery, the green in the parks, the music in the clubs, all with an overarching theme of solitude was beginning to draw me in......(To be continued)