Young Writers Society

The only thing appealing about being an insomniac is, as far as I’ve observed, not what you can get done in the hours you aren’t sleeping, but the calm. Something that comes only after so many hours of sleeplessness. Particles of dust become tiny bits of diamonds floating in the open air, heartbeats meeting in time with the chirping of the crickets outside bedroom windows, the sweet smell of petrichor mixing with the allure of the moonlight through the window as you breath in the darkness and exhale all of your troubles. After millenniums have passed it’s as if you can feel Earth moving gently through the void, rotating around the sun, and the sun around the galaxy, and so on and so on through the entire universe. It’s a glorious curse.

I have it on good authority that there are four types of insomniacs in the world:

The first type is one that is medically diagnosed with insomnia. They can take medication to sleep, but I’m sure that not all of them do. Taking advantage of the condition in order to understand. The visions so commonly seen almost directly behind the eyes so that when you close your eyes to blink you won’t even miss them for a mere fraction of a second

The second type are those self inflicted insomniacs who choose to stave sleep for as long as possible. Mostly, to avoid the horrors. Terrible nightmares and night terrors lay waste to their minds when their eyes close and their minds drift off into space. So in a futile attempt to grapple with those demons, they force themselves to stay awake. The lamp light is on, and the music is turned up to full volume so as to block out the rest of the world.

The third type of insomniac, the most compassionate, are those that stay up to keep the others company. Born out of love, they lay awake at night in their beds in the dark. Just awake enough to be alert to the sounds of messages and the outside world, but asleep enough to see the visions. They fall into slumber soon after everyone else.

The fourth and final type, in my mind the most poetic, are the leftovers of all the other types. Whether they’ve overcome self infliction, or beaten clinical insomnia, or have finished and given all their time and effort and all their love to another and they’ve lulled everyone else into slumber so they can as well. But most times they lay awake still, imagining things that the others don’t. They fabricate different worlds, and people, they play and replay their lives on a record over and over and go over every mistake again and again. Sometimes they cry, fierce passionate tears, they roll down their cheeks like tiny liquid emeralds in the absence of light. But not for long, because of the calm. Often times they will wait and wait, and eventually surrender to the somber glow of repose, letting the rotation of the cosmos rock them gently away; waiting reluctantly for the sun to rise again in the morning.