For distractions, I
have to lose,
And the sleep I need to choose,
My medicaments could be to blame,
Or for another’s claim to fame,
I stir and toss alone in bed,
Not one news story left unread,
A nodding doze with utter dread,
Is not that thing I saw long dead?
The watch gives time
that runs awry,
I look at time and want to try,
If slumber comes I need to sleep,
But not one eyelid gives a peep,
Then dawn does break upon my wake,
Now wearily my hand doth take,
The Sandman late though for my sake,
What have I done to keep awake?
I have not accepted
the fact that I probably suffer from insomnia even though some close friends
have observed my erratic sleeping patterns.
My pill time is
usually in the 2-hour window between 23:00 hours and 01:00 hours, suggesting I
am awake until about 02:00 hours in the morning.
Once I am in bed, I
polish off a few tweets, sometimes I get into a scrap many will consider rank floccinaucinihilipilification,
but that is part of making light of a long day.
Sounds for bounds
Some music, a
teaching, or audio lectures become the background sound of my descent into
slumber that rarely stretches beyond 3 hours, if I do not wake up at least once
in that period.
However, I have
learnt to sleep with no background sounds and eliminated the fear of my mind
wandering too far for me to control; the nightmares that feast on the agitated
seeds of my imagination.
Lights, I still need, and that story is longer than I have time to tell or write about. I have somewhat found a way to sleep short, but rest well, even if I could do with a lot more sleep.
After my second
short session of sleep that brought the dawning of the day, I said a little
prayer and rolled over to interact with my social media community.
Derma arachnida
I felt a tingling itch asking
for a scratch on my arm. And there, between the rational that saw a spider and
the split second of the reflex of a flailed arm of its disappearance onto the camouflaged
protection of the carpet; I realised I did not have enough information to ask
for an antidote if I had been stung by the spider.
I guess that
sometimes defines how we react to circumstances. The information we have
acquired in the split second that requires the patience of another few seconds
to make rational decisions based on getting better informed is lost to reflex
and reaction that you are left none the wiser about the experience.
Surely, my spider
moment is no exercise in floccinaucinihilipilification, is it?
It has become a
refrain, the monotony of a shrill choral piece ringing in the air that the
haunting sound of the wind rustling the leaves of the willow tree in the
cemetery at the edge of town.
Strange beds and
funny pillows, stranger faces with smiles that reshape the face but have no
heart in them, a constant wandering like a nomad in the desert with no paths to
follow, no known watering holes, stumbling upon oases big and small but the
journey must continue due north to the place where hope becomes reality.
He has fought to
live and struggled not to die, but each respite is just like the catching of
breath in the swirling turbulent seas where the strength to swim and stay
afloat is slowly ebbing away – he is desperately hoping for a rescue or waiting
for the last time when the eyes close, the life he has lived swiftly flashes by
for one last memory of the best times to depart as if fulfilled.
Sometimes, I wonder about my sleeplessness in bed but sleepfulness in anything that moves, cars, trains, buses, planes, boats; I seem to find the spirit of slumber overtaking my wakefulness quite easily.
For all the canal trips that I have been on in Amsterdam either as a tourist or a host I have hardly ever kept awake long enough to survive the hour.
The gentle rocking motion that does wonders to quieten upset babies in their perambulators appears not to have deserted me at all.
Don’t steal my sleep
However, in all that slumber is some awareness I cannot account for but am grateful to have as experienced years ago when I noticed a bag theft on a train at Amsterdam Sloterdijk and like an zombie made for the thief, grabbed his jumper and as the train doors were closing, he dropped the bag and made off.
In fact, there were 2 in that game, in the cloud of the eerie haze of sleep, I saw one man get on the coach and drop some money, as the passenger leant down to help pick up the coins the other man walked by picking up his bag of legal documents and made for the exit – it all looked so strange and hence my reaction.
Meanwhile the passenger was none the wiser about it until I returned the bag to him; I was offered a police job in Bahrain – thank you very much, but no thanks.
Drop anchor on bags
One lesson I had learnt from that episode was to put my bags on the inside where the window seat is not occupied on a train and I take the aisle seat.
If the seats have arm rests, I twist the bag strap around the arm rest as an additional protective measure; we are usually warned about pickpockets at stations but the pickpockets are usually bag snatchers.
However, I have never heard an announcement like that around the Antwerp Central Station, so you can imagine as my journey from Brussels stopped at Antwerp I was in the stupor of sleep when I suddenly woke up to see my bag levitating with the aid of strange hand.
What to lose?
Even I was surprised by my reaction because all I did in almost deadpan Englishness was ask him, “What are you doing?” He mumbled something about looking for his ticket as my bag was allowed to yield to the force of gravity to land where it once was.
As I stood up, the man made for the exit, quite a close encounter that was, in one of those instances where my bag was not as tethered to moorings of the seat as one is wont to doing. It was a different kind of train and seating arrangement compared to the usual service.
Maybe I need to find that part of my brain that triggers sleep while in motion and have it lobotomised before I come to grief, though I do know that I have never witnessed any car accidents I have been in, sleep spared me the shock of those events and denied interested parties useful commentary from an eye witness because my invariably were closed at the time.
Thankfully, I did not suffer any loss apart from the loss of sleep at the point that I believe I was dreaming.
