Night Musings

It's after midnight again, and I'm sitting in my study surfing the Internet and watching the blackness outside my window. I'm not tired; I can't sleep. There's no use trying, not yet, because I know I'll just lie there next to my wife, staring into the darkness of the bedroom and listening to her breathing. I make a few purchases from Amazon - things I can do without but seem to offer me something that I think I might need at some point. I read a Rilke poem on a writer friend's website and feel a clenching sensation in my chest. I wonder how long a person can survive on five hours' sleep a night, and then I remember how I basically wrote myself into hospital last month. Nothing makes sense to me right now but these words, this process of writing down my thoughts.

Somewhere outside, a car engine growls. Lights go off in the house across the way. The black shape of a cat slinks along the top of a stone wall. My eyes hurt. I wish I could go to sleep.

It's after midnight. Again.