Another little something...

Insomniac.

Heavy eyes, drooping shoulders, shabbily clad, I pass the morning hours like a ghost. Counting each hour as it passes by, I wait impatiently for the night, every minute hoping that tonight would be ‘the’ night that I finally realise that wondrous moment when I finally fall into the blissful state of complete relaxation and ignorance, of heavenly joy, of sleep.

I am an insomniac. Every night for as many as I can remember, I have been teetering on the edge of euphoric semi-consciousness only to be prematurely awakened from the dream by a cold sweat. Every night I squirm around in my bed trying to shake off the skeletons in my head, disturbing my peace. But before all this, this evil kaleidoscope of misery, there was a time, like the little ray of hope in Pandora’s Box, when I could rest, sleep when I was tired, and wake up when I was refreshed. Those days are long gone, but the light in them percolates through the dark cobwebs of my consciousness, showering a little joy and hope into an otherwise futile existence.

We all take sleep for granted. The clichéd “nights before the exams”, the inevitable nights wasted away trying to copy down the multitudes of pages of an assignment that helps “develop interest” in the subject, have all made humungous contributions towards making me and a lot of other people living dead that we are now. And the future does not hold a lot of promise for our lot.

There is absolutely no escaping it. Let’s face it, assignments have to be submitted, tests have to be written. We cannot revolt against the system, which many believe to be very sound. All we can do is wait for the messiah to come and sing an irresistible lullaby to us and put us to a long awaited and extremely well deserved repose.

Till then I remain a figment of Enrique Iglesias’s imagination. I remain an insomniac.