sleep less nights
- Shashwat
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
Wind whistles beyond the windowpanes. I lay on a bachelor fourposter that lurches in the middle, restless and awake. I do not try to sleep anymore. Ears pick up murmurs from the residents next door. Footfalls in the corridor grow loud and become faint, grow loud and become faint. Ghosts chatter endlessly on the voice box; it is the height of winter in April.
I order food on the internet. The first few hundred times I pledge I will not order again, delete the application, remove credit card information from the wallet, but now I have given up trying to cure my depraved gluttony before desire for it burns away from the growing mountain of dissatisfaction that I know comes in the wake of every lust.
Belly bloats, mouth is foul, eyes dry and temple ready for the bout of impending headache. Uneasiness pervades the chest. I am not drunk, but I feel all the horrors of a night getting drunk.
When everything quietens down, I can feel my heart beating faster than it should. I am sick with a dis-ease without a diagnosis.
Trash gathers on the tiled floor. Smell of unfinished tacos from two nights ago lingers in the air. Inside the fridge, meat rots, and shards of shattered glass from the broken coffee pot gather dust under the desk beyond the reach of broom and mop.
My ears ring. Do they pick up electrical whirring in the sockets? It is too loud at the club, and I am standing too close to the speakers.
Wind wails beyond the windowpanes. It mourns the living, and it mourns the dead. The wind blows harsh and loud. I cannot bear its cries. The walls are too thin.
Somebody shat on the toilet seat today. I fling the doors to the toilet shut. There is little disgust. I wonder how someone can leave such a neat load of brown shit on the black toilet seat. My neighbors show ingenuity. Three days ago, there was a thick pile of orange bile in the urinal, on the wall behind and the floor underneath.
The wind, the wind, the wind again. There is no Sun for a week. Bleak cloudy days, I stay inside all week, unwilling to move, unable to step outside, imprisoned.
Turkeys prance in the parking lot, and I sit by the entrance to the residence hall, two males and a female. The males have their wings spread. The female does not give a fuck. Hours pass. I watch. Night falls... They slowly prance away. My eyes can no longer follow them, and my feet are unwilling to pursue. I step back inside, inside and upstairs, down the corridor on the second floor, back inside my room.
I dream I have a broken arm. I carry it everywhere. I cannot go to a hospital. I cannot imagine that I need to go to the hospital. I carry my broken arm loose at the elbow, like a man who forgets something important faintly aware that he has forgotten something important but cannot pause to sit, think, and remember what it is that he forgets. Only in dreams can someone with a broken arm forget the concept of a hospital, treatment, medicine and cure for injury.
Turkeys peck at blades of grass, lurch their necks back, take a step, peck at another blade of grass, lurch their necks back, take another step.
By the riverside, a blue tent has taken root. I see a man sitting next to it sometimes. He has a shopping cart next to the tent, a cardboard box inside it, a sweater and some bottles and cans. I see him watch the Sun set.
A few turkeys march away in a single file, stretching a full hundred yards. A bunch still peck at blades of grass, lurch their necks back, and take a step. The last one on the march stops to wait for others, watches those in the march file away. He looks at those pecking at blades of grass, turns to look at the ones on march filing ahead, turns back to the ones still lurching forward to peck and backwards to take another step. He alone stands by the gate, equidistant from the ones walking away and the ones pecking still.
My nose bleeds. I sneeze to clear the passage, and bloody snot sticks to the sink and washes away into a sword melting at its tip. Cupping some water in my palm, I wash the snot away.
Geese walk on the frozen Charles. The blue tent flaps in the breeze. Snow has erased the signs of earth on the banks. Sun casts sharp shadows, and eyes fail to pick up much beyond silhouettes in the distance. It is high noon. I slowly go blind in whiteness. I forgot my sunglasses.
Of all the bikes in the rack, mine alone bears the winter untouched. A foam of snow sits on the seat; the locks freeze. Tires crack and deflate. Iron rusts. I bought it for two hundred dollars, thinking I would ride on it every day.
Clothes gather in the laundry basket, and the towel smells of crotch. Socks and underwear fill the air with the rotten mustiness of sweat and semen mixed with droplets of piss. I do not wash it for weeks on purpose. Call it an experiment with odors.
There are letters in the mailbox every week. I am pre-approved for a credit card from Capital One. I think they have sent me a credit card. Thankfully, they have not; it is a piece of paper cut in the shape of a card. I do not remember applying for one in any case.
Ryan Reynolds remembers to wish me on Christmas. There is a postcard from Mint Mobile. I can earn a 45 dollar credit for recommending Mint Mobile to a friend.
Fire alarm goes off for a third time. I am up and awake. Everyone tsks-tsks at the inconvenience and yet somehow feels a reprieve that comes wrapped up as inconvenience. Standing outside and waiting for the fire trucks to show up, I do not feel bad at all. I think I should not stare at the sirens. They can induce a seizure. But I am attracted to the blue and red lights. Cannot take my eyes off! Someone was cooking and made a lot of smoke. We can all go back in now, the firemen inform us as they hop back on to the trucks in disappointment or relief, I cannot say for sure...
Smells like piss in the shower. Yellow trickles on the mosaic floor. I stand under the faucet, turn the knob all the way to hot as fuck. It burns my back; I will have blisters. But the piss stains wash away. I add my own stream of ablutions into the mix.
My hair grows too long. It has been months since I had a haircut. It costs fifty dollars. Not that I care about money. Just look at my food deliveries. I have no control. But I cannot be bothered to get a haircut, so I look gnarly as fuck.
There is a fireplace in my room, but it is bricked over, and the radiator sucks all the moisture out. My nostrils are dry, and my lungs feel like firewood. I fear that if I snap my fingers too hard, I will ignite the Great Fire of Cambridge.
Sometimes I hear breaths other than mine. To listen clearly, I hold my breath. 4/17/17 is etched with a knife on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. One hundred years ago, someone scratched that date with a sharp blade. Lacquered over since then, it still stands etched deep and visible. I run my fingers into the crevices. Who was here? One hundred years from now, who will be here?
I bring a lot of earth inside with my slippers, so I have to mop the floor. Turn everything upside down and set off a storm of fuzz and dust in the air. Tyndall effect on display. Definition: scattering of light by colloidal particles. They prick the hair in my nose, ah choo! Ah choo! Ah choo! Bless me!
I buy a yoga mat.
Books I do not care to read but purchase or loan from the library cover the shelf, and fill up the desk, pile on top of the bedside table and drawer and the wardrobe. Why do I gather so many books? Why do I order so much food? Why do I fill every waking minute with thoughts and sleep with dreams? I think I know hunger and scarcity... I know not love and satisfaction.
I tell myself that I am alright, I should not be afraid. Why do I insist? It makes me suspect.
So many nights of so many days spent awake and restless. I see the day break at dawn and sleep through the mornings.
When I finally launder my clothes, it is a task to haul them to the basement, load the washer, pour the detergent, tap the card, select the washer, swipe to pay, and press three buttons just to get the washer spinning. I have lost so many socks in the basement. It is right next to the mailroom. Capital One has sent me a second mail. And my bank too! A credit card statement. I spend more than I deposit. I breathe more than I live, say more than I do, think more than I am. Debt! Debt! Debt! The first 5000 years…
By the river lies the carcass of a goose in final rest and repose. As it walks on the frozen Charles, the ice beneath her feet caves in. The poor bird let its long neck rest after the struggle was lost. Asleep at last on a mattress of snow. Birth has now ended. While much was true while it lasted, all is fiction now that it is no more.
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