Insomniac

Can't seem to stay asleep these days - eyes wide open kind of sleeplessness.

While everyone drifts off to slumberland, my weary body stuck is with a head doing mental gymnastics.

Sometimes I think about my day - "I should have done that" or "Maybe I shouldn't have eaten that apple crumble" - to what I should do with my time tomorrow - finally finishing that book or having coffee with a friend.

And then I almost always find myself thinking about 1 or more of these 3 things:

1. Food
2. Death
3. Not-so-friendly monsters lurking under my bed

The top chef in me dreams about whipping up chocolate brownies in our new oven and cooking up a pasta storm. And then deluded enough to think that everyone will be falling all over themselves trying to get copies of my fabulous secret recipe.

And then sometimes I strangely think about mortality - mine and everyone else's. Maybe not so much the death part since death is pretty much a given the moment you are born. It's the how and when - shot by a crazed gunman while valiantly protecting an innocent or get my neck slashed by some random shard of glass ... yes, I'm morbid that way.

I also stupidly think about spectres and ghouls and souls with unfinished business at the most unsavoury of times. Why oh why do I do this to myself?! And it's usually at this point where my bladder starts overworking and I daren't make that journey to the bathroom for fear of meeting any unfriendly creatures of the night.

Then when I finally convince myself that I'm stupid and summon the courage to go, I silently remind myself not to respond if I hear my name being called or suddenly feel a tap on my shoulder or look in the mirror for fear of catching a reflection of some ... thing.

But remember, I am stupid ... and vain - so I look in the mirror. And there she was, a face white as sheet with hollow lifeless eyes, grey bloodless lips and hair in violent tangles.

So this is how insomniacs look like huh? I need sleep.