The 1” high bright red numbers of the clock read 3:38am. Another night when the pillow feels like a cinderblock. I turned the TV off at midnight. My brain must be a complete catastrophe inside with all of the churning and endless clamor. 

The small nightlight attached to my emergency flashlight plugged into the wall gives off just enough glow to let me distinguish the contents of the room. Which I’ve done thousands of times over the years. Nothing ever changes. Including me. 

I reach for my iPad as always. Must check out SS and Lush to see what’s up. Nope. Nobody loves me. No messages. No pics. No posts. Then switch over to Tumblr to see the latest. Yep. Same old naked pics. A few castles. Lots of flowers. Somebody flooded my page with food. All well and good but not very enthralling. A couple of the naked pics were but once you reblog them.. move on. 

The clock reads 3:40am. What! Two fucking minutes is all that passed! Going to be a long night. I close the iPad and the room is once again in the familiar darkness. My pillow no longer feels like a cinderblock. It’s more like a bag full of doorknobs. 

I retired in 2010. Or thought I did. After 30 years of doing what I do they thought I needed to stick around under contract for another six months and close out some of the more intense projects still on the books. That six months turned into four years. So just before Christmas last I waltzed in and left my keys, cards, ID, laptop, and a sticky note on my empty desk. It said one word. “Enough.” 

It’s funny how that one word speaks volumes. There are other words that do as well. All very clear but simultaneously open to interpretation. Love. Truth. Trust. Help. Then there are other words that can only possibly mean what they represent. Pain. Hurt. Sadness. Loss. 3:52am. Fuck! Oh yeah. That word too. 

Back to the iPad. Somebody must have done something by now. SS. Nope. Lush. Nope. Tumblr. What’s with all this goddamn food!! No one wants to see a frickin’ greasy cheeseburger and curly fries this early in the morning! Naked chic.. naked chic.. oh wait.. that’s a cool watch. 

Darkness again. I can hear a goose in the distance honking for attention. Sound carries at night. No telling how far away they are. Then I remember a National Geographic story about snow geese flying as high as 30,000 feet. Navigating six miles above the earth. I’m thinking to myself I couldn’t even do that with a cockpit full of technology. It somehow makes me feel insignificant. 

4:01am. How does one force themselves to sleep? How is it some people can doze immediately? I have never been able to. Too much going on upstairs. Even when I’m finally able to sleep the screaming never stops. It only gets quieter.