Thin Hour
3:33 AM.
I awoke in a sweat, heart racing, palms sticky. The kind of sweat that's been there before you were aware, pulling you writhing out of sleep and sweet dreams. I felt restless. Disturbed.
But it's 3:33 AM. And that means something.
I rose from the sticky sheets far too fast. Blindly, stumbling, desperate, I'm suddenly at the bathroom sink, head down and then looking to gaze at my reflection, like some scene from a movie. Cool water, a deep breath, climbing back to bed. I gasped for sleep again, wondering what it was that pulled me from it. The sweat? A nightmare? The time?
I toss a few times, slowly realizing that this night's intermission was going to be much longer. I feel my eyes working beneath the lids, dancing like young pups. Faster and faster until I become distracted by the visions that were forming their way out of hazy half-sleep. The visions are cloudy and annoying, not like the pretty dreams of normal. And then a slow "click, click, click" worming its way into the subconscious. Toss onto the other side, deep breath, telling myself I'll sleep soon. I realize that clicking is the fan. How, now, can I possibly sleep?
But the visions are coming. The fan, it's apart of them now. The clicking, another piece. Was the broken fan even real? A vision of a horse is -writing, dominant- now involved in the whole mess. Other animals cloud the vision but they seem out of place. Those must be my own imaginations - not part of the visions - and so I try to throw out these unimportant imageries.
Check the time again. It is 4:01 AM - the thin hour is gone.
And then sleep comes fast and uncomplicated now that the surreal now longer speaks. I sleep then, deeply, until I wake and the night's visions are forgotten with the morning light.
I awoke in a sweat, heart racing, palms sticky. The kind of sweat that's been there before you were aware, pulling you writhing out of sleep and sweet dreams. I felt restless. Disturbed.
But it's 3:33 AM. And that means something.
I rose from the sticky sheets far too fast. Blindly, stumbling, desperate, I'm suddenly at the bathroom sink, head down and then looking to gaze at my reflection, like some scene from a movie. Cool water, a deep breath, climbing back to bed. I gasped for sleep again, wondering what it was that pulled me from it. The sweat? A nightmare? The time?
I toss a few times, slowly realizing that this night's intermission was going to be much longer. I feel my eyes working beneath the lids, dancing like young pups. Faster and faster until I become distracted by the visions that were forming their way out of hazy half-sleep. The visions are cloudy and annoying, not like the pretty dreams of normal. And then a slow "click, click, click" worming its way into the subconscious. Toss onto the other side, deep breath, telling myself I'll sleep soon. I realize that clicking is the fan. How, now, can I possibly sleep?
But the visions are coming. The fan, it's apart of them now. The clicking, another piece. Was the broken fan even real? A vision of a horse is -writing, dominant- now involved in the whole mess. Other animals cloud the vision but they seem out of place. Those must be my own imaginations - not part of the visions - and so I try to throw out these unimportant imageries.
Check the time again. It is 4:01 AM - the thin hour is gone.
And then sleep comes fast and uncomplicated now that the surreal now longer speaks. I sleep then, deeply, until I wake and the night's visions are forgotten with the morning light.
Comments
Post a Comment