The ramblings of a sad teenager

18.

The perfect age to have your first sleepless night, isn't it?

I stare up at the sky.

Why are there no stars?

Light pollution.

I turn to my side, away from the light night, mum's fallen asleep.

I close my eyes.

An image appears in my head, the monotonous text my friend sent me, jarring in its monotony and its topic.

I haven't replied to her yet.

I know I should. I know I should.

I keep my eyes shut, the image warps into a news article I saw today, never a good sign.

I open my eyes.

The light darkness makes slow-moving patterns on the ceiling.

If I came to sleep in this room thinking I wouldn't be scared with my family nearby, I was wrong.

I look at my ma, she seems to be sleeping peacefully.

I close my eyes again.

I snippet of a webinar I attended yesterday pops into my head.

I worry about all my knowns who would start practically inhaling remdesivir come morning.

Morning and night don't mean anything anymore, not many sleep anymore come night and not many wake up hopeful and powerful come morning.

I close my eyes.

Can't sleep.

The cursed image re-enters my head.

This time it makes way for a fragile dream, the promise of sleep.

The stairs in my dream slip from underneath me and I feel it in my bones.

I open my eyes.

I can hear the sound of some dogs howling in the distance, with the deathly silence of people during daytime, even this sound doesn't remain exclusive to nighttime.

Reality shifts from underneath me like stairs in a dream.

What is night?

The moon is invisible, the stars have turned away, the darkness is not potent, the people are awake and moving shuffling flailing.

What is morning?

The days are meaningless, as unclear and dark as night, silent like the world has come to a standstill, pointless like a speech given by a sleep-talker.

I turn on my side and see my dad sleeping calmly.

I close my eyes again.

Still can't sleep.

Like clockwork.

The image.

I open my eyes early this time.

I look over and see my brother sleeping undisturbed.

Still can't sleep.

I close my eyes again.

I open them, the image is now ingrained into me.

Sleep doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon so I wonder why I'm subjecting myself to the horrors that come after closing my eyes.

Maybe a little trauma is worth it if I get to sleep after that.

Maybe I should get up and do something.

I'll wake everyone up if I do that.

Sleep is the only extended period of normalcy we can get, I can't take that away from them.

I look out again, the light night looks back at me.

Will they take the final exam?

I feel like I can't study anymore.

Discomfort takes over me.

I've had a lot of breakdowns over studies this past year.

I wonder if it's because I never cared before this year and it's catching up or if this year just sucked for studying.

I turn to my left.

They're all sleeping soundly.

Would it really be so bad if I sneaked away into my room and watched something stupid on youtube till dark-morning came to me.

My thoughts drift as I try to distract myself from the stupidity of going to binge youtube instead of getting sleep.

I wonder if I'll see him again.

He wasn't there in the online maths class that I was admittedly only attending in hopes of seeing him.

I think about my maths teacher.

The speech he gave about how the people, not the government, were to blame for where we were now.

I sigh.

I think of his mother.

Suffering is inevitable.

I think about how religious I've felt recently.

More superstitious than ever before too.

Every step feels like it's edging on a misstep.

Everything feels like an omen.

I am feeling everything and I am doing nothing.

I don't want to feel my brain rotting away anymore.

Maybe I should do an online college course in the time I'm stuck at home.

I think of my brother and his renewed interest in dinosaurs.

I think of the dinosaur sound videos I was binging a week ago (was it a month?).

Maybe I should take an archeology course.

I think of my daily walks with my mum.

Our talks about life, about people and why they do the things they do.

I think about the anguish that constantly lives in my mind now.

I wonder if I should take psychology.

I think of my dad and the countless stories he tells.

I think of the unusual world we live in.

I wonder if I should take literature.

It hits me.

The night is an unsaid conversation, it is an untold story or a rerun of an old story, no matter how light or dark it is.

The morning is everything you've been bursting to talk about, the morning is always an opportunity for something new, no matter how dark or light it is.

I get a message that we'll be having a maths class tomorrow.

I know I won't attend it.

I know I'll act like it doesn't exist.

I know I'll stay in my room all day long tomorrow.

I know I will be scared and anxious and angry tomorrow too.

I fall asleep anyway, ready to wake up and complain about my sleepless night, ready to tell a little story that'll prompt my mum to tell me to take a nap to catch up with my sleep needs.

I wake up to a dark-morning, deceptively bright.

Ma wakes me up and asks me to come to a morning jog with her and I tell her I did not sleep at all yesternight.

A minute later I wake up and get into my jogging shoes.

I run out of the house to catch up with her and tell her about an article I read and about how I got no sleep last night.