The mistiming somnambulist

Unslept

Quite much of an early riser that I am, the clock alarm serves no other purpose than to confirm the arrival and the passage of time. There are very few times when I get woken up by the alarm clock, my body clock seems to have the essential biorhythms for diurnal and nocturnal existence whilst being tuned to abort somnolence at the appropriate time.

Yet, it does not serve much purpose to the insomniac that gets to sleep well past midnight or more happiness slipping into dreamland with the lullabies of Sailing By and the Shipping Forecast.

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Overslept

Sleep arrives probably before 02:00AM and I will probably have 2 or more wakeful times by the time it is 06:00AM, BBC Radio 4 keeps my mind ticking away as I roll over trying to get a bit more sleep which altogether may not total more than 4 hours in the night with the 2 hours I have in the early evening.

Then yesterday, my eyes popped open at 7:16AM and my train was leaving the station at 7:17AM, how did I sleep through the alarm? It meant a day of working from home as I cancelled my pickup from the destination station to the office.

Had a health check and the prick of a needle in a number of places before the day was over and I looked forward to the next day. The night fell and I went to bed.

Underslept

The dawn broke with the imprint of the last day; did I miss the alarm again? It was light, the light of an early summer’s day and one glance at my watch and I saw 7:00AM, jumped in my trousers and in 7 minutes I was in a rapid trot to the station.

The streets were eerily quiet for the time of the day and as I got to the station and looked at the clock on the noticeboard, it was 5:13AM. I smiled, got my ticket and sauntered back home for a lie-in.

The memory, the drugs, absent-mindedness or the simple blurring of the sight that gives the mind the wrong information to act on. I looked at my watch at least 4 times before I saw the time on the station clock, all the time, I saw a time 2 hours ahead on a watch with hands until the digital display at the station reset my perspective to see the right time.

Some made fun of me, I chose to ignore them. It was a lovely day.