Of Insomnia

I think people tell me to count sheep to fall asleep because sheep are the most boring characters out there. I shouldn’t be able to help but snooze if I’m forced to watch them jumping over a fence over and over. But in my mind, the sheep don’t just jump like they’re supposed to. The first one does a front flip, the next a triple axel. From then on, the moves get more complicated, as do the costumes adorning the sheep. There’s one that’s fond of pole vaulting. Biker-sheep revs the engine of its Harley, then drives up a ramp and soars over, black leather jacket flapping in the wind. The next sheep, adorned in swim trunks, surfs over as a wave engulfs the fence.

The sheep in the back are impatient. Running up to the front, they try to steal a spot closer in line, but there is no line anymore, it’s just a mob.

“Hey! Get baaa-a-a-a-a-k to your spot!” One sheep complains.

“You can’t pull the wool over my eyes!” another one asserts.

One tough looking ewe with an eye patch pulls a bazooka out of her wool. Another sheep, all in black, unsheathes a machete. Ninja stars fly. Flame throwers torch. Someone activates a wolf-launcher, and everything goes haywire.

Ah! Insomnia! It turns my mind into a leaf blower, droning on and on at a steady buzz. Never resting. Thoughts pinwheel through, twisting together like the colors on a candy cane. Sheep blow each other up with hand grenades as I try to remember what the highest occupied molecular orbital of acetate is for chemistry. Under the Capitol’s orders, peacekeepers abduct a litter of kittens. I have to drive on a road with more windy turns than an overcooked noodle. The road turns out to be a river with a waterfall at the end.

I try to concentrate on nothing and let my mind go blank, but since nothing in essence is something, it doesn’t help. My limbs don’t really exist, I tell myself. But my foot itches, so they do. I listen to my own even breathing, but the breaths turn into seashore waves that wash me into the ocean and drown me beneath the crushing pressure of colorful coral reef thoughts.

Is there no solution? Must I lie on this bed until the shadows shift into the fuzzy light of early morning and the dawn claims me? Then I’d have to drag myself to my 8:00 class as if I were the ghost of Christmas past, moaning and wrapped in chains.

I had several options. I could do nothing, letting my thoughts spin like a cotton candy maker until the candy ran out and I fell asleep. I could get up and do some productive studying. Or I could chug some Nyquil. One thing was for sure. Never again would I drink coffee an hour before I went to bed.