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[josh pov]

It’s been a long time since I slept the recommended eight hours. I honestly don’t remember the last time I managed anything more than about five hours at a time. I’m used to it.

I don’t go to bed until late, until I think that there’s a chance I’ll fall right sleep. Not that I do.

I’m wide-awake by the time I’ve changed and brushed my teeth and done the hundred other automatic actions that I need to prepare myself for bed.

Then I lie in bed and wait. Wait for my eyes to close in protest to the darkness of the room that seems slowly to become too light. Wait for my brain to shut down in anticipation of recharging. Wait for my feet, hands, arms to still.

I’d be lying if I suggested even for a nanosecond that I believed it would happen.

I know that as soon as I forcefully close my eyes my brain will whirr into action, overloading with information. I do much of my work for the next day in those hours before sleep finally consumes me.

At night I plan meetings. I mentally arrange the words that I might use for conversations to persuade people into my way of thinking.

I don’t sleep.

I used to have a pad of paper by the side of my bed. I’d note down convincing arguments that I’d think of at night in preparation for the morning.

But by morning they were never as coherent or effective as I’d imagined. The witty comebacks and retorts lacked the logic to impress even myself in the light of day. The reasoning was weak, contrived, nonsensical even, and so their fate was usually that of the trash.

The paper now resides in the lounge so anything that I deem worthy has to be considered deeply before any commitment can be made. Climbing out of bed to jot something down is not something to be taken lightly when it’s so cold and dark.

In thinking about these things I can pass the time, but am brought no closer to sleep. By engaging my brain in puzzles and solutions I find it more difficult to sleep. I get caught up in the excitement that I try to reserve for the day, and have to remind myself to be calm.

It’s then that I turn on the light, sigh, and sit up to read the memos and documents that I placed at the side of my bed in anticipation of the inevitable.

I choose sheets of paper that in the day are so mind-numbingly boring I cannot bring myself to read them unless it’s imperative. At night, though, I relish in these documents. Scanning them, then starting again and reading them in depth, committing the main points to memory.

I am awake.

Eventually, my eyes start to droop and I place the documents back on the table, and switch off the light.

Cool breeze from the window reaches my face, brushing it softly, and I move deeper into the warmth of the covers.

Half-awake, this is the time that I need to relax if I don’t want to find myself at the beginning of the nightly cycle.

My thoughts drift to work, and I pull my mind away from that, settling on safer ground. Often, I see Donna at this point. My mind has equated her with relaxation, of security and comforting familiarity.

Memories and images float through my mind, and I see them all in great detail. I think about how tired she’s been looking recently, the way that she walks round in a daze, the job an automatic function of unconscious brain stem activity.

I remember the way that she smiled at me, or when she tried not to laugh at something I’d said. Our bantering comments are replayed over and over in my head, causing me to smile, or to think of something that I could have said in response to make her laugh instead of leaving conversation where it was.

She makes me relax deeper, falling towards unconsciousness. Sometimes more fantastic images come to mind. Things that I have not seen, that I can only hope I have yet to see.

The imagined feel of her lips on mine, the way that she touches my body. Slow, lingering touches that suggest a more intimate knowledge than I know she possesses. How she feels, looks, sounds as we make love.

I don’t know whether this is an unrealistic dream or a substantiated hope for the future.

What I do know is that eventually it will lull me into a sound sleep that will last me until five minutes before my alarm rings and she calls.

At night everything is possible and within reach.

Only in daylight do the realities persist.

The world becomes clear and the ramblings of the night are shown for what they really are.

And then I’ll really start to think, and I’ll see that everyone else is doing the same.

Thinking about the night and wondering when the actuality of day will finally sink in.

Thinking of how to plan what’s next.

At night, I don’t have to plan the future. I simply know.

FINI

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