Fragment #3 - Sleepless nights

You know when you just can't get any sleep? It's usually when you have to get up very early in the morning, say six. The problem is that you do eventually sleep after hours of staring at the insides of your eyelids. The thing is we all know that a little sleep is a lot worse than getting none at all, then you get all the pain of waking up without the main benefits. This isn't my problem, I'm trying not to fall into a torpid stupor.
What can you do when you find yourself in a state like this? Masturbating is a poor method to while the hours away. So what happens is you get stuck in a rut of painful introspection for hours on end. You think of all the people you knew, all the regrets you tell yourself you don't have and you wonder, yes you wonder what if...

I get up and walk through my dark flat naked apart from my underwear looking almost for something that will not be there. I go into my kitchen, tripping over some of the detritus that has built up over the past month on the floor and make my way to the fridge to investigate what may be in there. In the past three hours I have been there and back about nine times. It's almost like I expect there will be something different from what I saw last. By the light of the fridge I look at my watch and note that it seems to have stopped working, the second hand ticking back and forth impotently, I have no idea how long it's been like that, somewhat like my life.

I have my coffee now and I sit in darkness thinking about all the nightmares that I'm missing by staying awake. No not nightmares, more dreams of what could have been. Sweet dreams that fill you with love and peace during those hours of unconsciousness only to have them dashed upon the rocks violently when the kind slumber comes to an end. That is when you realise it was just a dream and none of it was real, happiness was there and you felt it. Now it's gone and all that's left is a void.

I stare out of my window at the sleeping street below trying to feel something other than this. Anything, just not this.