Insomnia
a rather short story by mj
The span of time is but a mere instant. So passes days which merge into nights; hours which divide into minutes; moments which break into seconds. Everywhere the ticking of clocks, a steady rhythm denoting each second that passes, marking them off as if on a list. And the checks don’t sum to infinity. Time is running out.
This is what I tell myself. When the world outside is no longer shouting, when the silence grows so forceful it afflicts, when the roof above lets out its final groan, when the bedclothes refuse to offer comfort, when the eyes no longer sense a distinction between open and shut, when the body won’t cease its buzzing, nor will the brain stop its musing. This is what I tell myself.
Either everything means everything or nothing means anything.
Lying here, faced with myself and my box of potential, the world seems absurd. More time slips through my fingers and I watch it dissipate into glowing green lines, flickering what might be my last warning.
This is what I want to shape, yet the hands undo the other’s action. I find myself wanting for something that has no word by which to identify it, some silly concept, a misleading notion that leads me to no place, no time, no mind. I struggle with a paradox I cannot define while more seconds, more checks waste and go by.
It takes solitude to sustain me, giving solace that’s oddly empty. I only know of peace that’s uneasy, of sorrow that fills and sates a wearied soul. There is a passion to my madness that drips away at faltering intensity with each moment lost. I must make a move.
This is what I tell myself.
This is what has no shape.
This is another instant spent.
Time is running out.
