Young Writers Society

This is an awkward piece of fiction I wrote at...*gasp* 1:00 in the morning. I don't expect good reviews, but I thought I'd throw it out there. After reading the nominations for the YWS awards, I realized I wasn't putting enough fiction out there.

Late Night Bloomer

The streets of my neighborhood really are very quiet, even if it is only between midnight and six in the morning. Normally, they are buzzing with cars zipping in and out of garages, to and from work, housewives leaning over fences gossiping, dogs barking at the neighborhood boys flying by on skateboards, and lawnmowers humming and drowning out the wind. Of course, this time frame suits me just fine, seeing that I suffer from, what I think may be, incurable insomnia.

I’ve had fits of insomnia since eighth grade. I would just lie there, tossing and turning, thinking of different things. I thought of what I needed to do, how miserable the day had been, what songs I had heard that day that I had liked…you know, random things that tired minds tend to think of. Then, I’d toss and turn and fall into a restless sleep until my alarm clock went off at an annoying six o’ clock. I’m not exactly sure how long this went on, or when I started sleeping again, but I did, eventually.

It was two hears before it hit me again. The second time around, it was much worse. I’d just there, staring at my impossibly white walls, thinking of things to think of. Sometimes I’d watch TV, or get on the computer, anything to occupy my time. The nights seemed to drag on forever, and I could only slightly remember how short eight hours seemed when I slept, once upon a time.

My sleepless nights continued, as did my sophomore year of high school. I was beat, and my grades fell dramatically because I was sleeping in class, or too dazed to listen. I stopped eating because I slept when I should eat, or thought about sleeping when I should have been eating. I kept thinking that maybe since I was so tired during the day, I would be able to crawl into my bed and just sleep. I prayed and prayed that I would be able to. I popped Tylenol PM after Tylenol PM, hoping that maybe, just maybe, when darkness fell, I would sleep. But that was just wishful thinking.

Finally, one night, I stood up from my bed, after a particularly bad bout of tossing and turning, and, slipping under my curtains, gazed wistfully out my window. I blinked back surprise (or was the sleep?) as I saw how completely serene my street was. The starlight reflected in windows, and the sliver of the moon that hung in the sky illuminate the naked pavement. It was eerie and silver and seemed completely and uncharacteristically peaceful. I watched the trees sway in the breeze, and wondered if, for once, the wind could be heard singing. Silence penetrated the thick glass pane, and I pushed it up. The quiet noise of nighttime flooded my room. The soft swoosh, swoosh of the wind, the opening of the night-blooming jasmine, the distant who?, who? Of an owl were immediately sirens. My tired head almost burst with pain from the sheer sound of it. I slammed the window shut, and stumbled back, letting the curtains fall into place, hiding the view. Suddenly, I was no longer unable to go to sleep at night, I was scared to. It’s amazing what a fatigued mind, blank like my walls, thirsty for though, can conjure.

That phase, thankfully, didn’t last long.

Soon after my fear of the dark, I became enamored with it. It was like I couldn’t get enough of looking longingly onto these foreign streets, watching the twinkling stars, feeling the lonely, nighttime breeze leak through the screen on my window, listening to the night-blooming jasmine awaken. It seemed like the entire night was just oozing with things calling my name, beckoning me. So I put my tennis shoes on my bare feet, still in my pajamas, snuck quietly down the carpeted stairs, and slipped out the door.

Nirvana, plain and simple.

It was like being release from a cage. Suddenly, I wasn’t tired anymore. I wasn’t bothered by not getting any sleep, or by the fact my grades were the lowest they’d ever been. It was just the night and me, the swishing of the trees, and the thump, thump of my shoes on concrete. I wasn’t even bothered by the fact that my mind was completely empty except for the perception of the world surrounding me.

***

I’m here now, sitting by my window. It’s storming and I’m watching the rain blur the night like an eraser smudges lead. It pit-a-pats in a simple fashion. It’s a quick, steady pattern, and I’m picking out shapes in the droplets’ paths. Even though the rain keeps me from my beloved nighttime, I can’t help but like it. The sound of it especially. Even when it’s vicious, the sound of a storm is still comforting.

I’m feeling more tired than usual. I hadn’t slept for a straight hour in two months, and yesterday, after school, I just crashed. It was sleep I can’t remember experiencing. It only lasted until sunset, though. It was still day when I woke up. But instead of refreshing me, it made me weaker, more tired and drowsy feeling, and now my body screams violently in protest at my sitting here with my eyes wide open, my brain in gravid though about precipitation. I refuse to listen to it, though. The storm has quieted, now, and my world is drowned in the silence that follows it. I can hear the bump, bump of my heard, and the prolonged beep of the ringing I my ears. I look outside my window, at the moon reflecting off the white night-blooming jasmine, and I wonder what they sound like as they open for their ten hours of glory. I imagine a soft hum, like the sound of air escaping the opened mouth of a child in deep rest, or in peaceful awakening.

Realizing that the rain has finally given way completely, I jump out of the chair propped by the window, and run downstairs, forgetting quiet and my shoes. I throw the door open, happy to be alone with my night again.

The hard, wet surface doesn’t bother me as I make my way past the dozing houses, up and down different streets, my bones aching with the mere thought of dozing. My body sags slightly. This is so unlike me. Here I am, me and the dark sky and the light celestials, the echoing sounds of night, the things I love more than anything, and I can barely move another step.

BUMP!

“Ah.”

I tumble back slightly from the impact. I was moving so slowly that I wasn’t knocked over, but my assailant was. I look at him through eyes that simply hang like they’ve never been closed. (I’m beginning to think they haven’t.) He is young, my age, maybe. He is pale as a ghost, dark shadows cradle his eyes, his hair hangs limply, like he has not had the initiative to fix it in ages, and his posture is slightly droopy. Except for the fact I am light haired and dark eyed, and he is dark haired and light eyed, his image mirrors mine.

“Excuse me,” he says in a hoarse, muffled voice.

“It’s okay,” I assure. This is a very awkward moment. It is not often you decide to take a three in the morning stroll and run into someone else. “Do you do this a lot?” It seems like an odd question, but really, to someone who does this every night, it is completely reasonable.

“Yeah,” he tells me, eyes suddenly alight with curiosity, stifled by fatigue. “I don’t sleep that well and coming out here clears my head. I can usually sleep until sunrise.” I shake my head, almost in awe.

“I don’t sleep at all when it’s dark.”

“Scared of it?”

“No,” I say honestly. “I used to couldn’t sleep because I was stressed. Now, I’m obsessed with the night. It’s weird.”

He nods. “That is weird.”

“It’s worse than insomnia,” I inform, and cover my yawn tepidly with my fingers.

He laughs a tired laugh. “Sounds worse.”

“I don’t know. I suppose if I have to stay awake, I might as well like it.”

“Do you?”

I think. Is obsession really liking something? I shake my head. “No, I guess I don’t.” Now I laugh. “I’ve done everything to be regular. I even quit drinking coffee.”

“Tylenol PM?” he asks. I laugh, then I realize we haven’t moved and I’m staring straight into his face, but I do no see him.

“What’s your name?” I question.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Well, then,” he begins, but then his voice trails off as though his brain isn’t working fast enough to finish the sentence. I know how he feels. “I guess I’ll go back.”

I look at him and try to study him through my eyelids, which are coming closer and closer to my bottom lashes. “You know what?” I ask. He doesn’t say anything, but I figure in his head he asked What? but was unable to verbalize it. “I think I am, too.” He smiles, I think, and I watch as he disappears behind one of the neighborhood’s standard garbage cans. Then I turn around and barely make it back up to my room.

Eventually, the sun streaks through the slit in the curtains, lining the floor in a fiery gold. It’s lovelier, I decide, than the moonlight. The birds’ songs make it through the glass of my window, the wind is hushed, and I think the tweet, tweet is nicer than the who?, who? of the owl. Then, gazing out my window, I watch as the morning glories slowly, slowly open, with a sound I imagine sounds much like the pah of someone sighing. This is worth much more than the hum of the night blooming jasmine.

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