insomania

I can't sleep. I spend my mornings in bed, my afternoons lethargically trailing through the house like a ghost. The nighttimes are when i feel my blood beating again, relentless, speaking of places to go and things to see. I go to bed with the window open and the sound of the nightime is too insistent for sleep. My room overlooks the garden; we have a pond, with a little fountain – well, a stream my father made – and the sound of the water trickling, the rushing noise, the calls of the birds that begin at two, the changing colour of the city sky from blue to orange and the damp, heady smell of the earth denies darkness and shut eyelids. In the middle-of-the-night silence, where no lights show in the opposite houses, there is a sense of life taking place. I can feel all the people I have ever loved in the wet grass smell, feel their breath as they inhale and exhale in their beds. There is a sense of the shared air of the city, of all cities. I wonder if the people I will love are also awake, the red glow of their cigarettes a dot of light as they lean out of their windows. It is too tempting a thought for me to close my window on them, especially as the autumn rotting of the garden makes all the smells and noises deeper and richer.

: 17 Sep 2005 00:33 |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem