3.23 am. Insomnia. I can’t get no sleep.
Downstairs is painted in vivid darkness. The shadows black as an underground coal face. Upstairs the family sleep the deep sleep of un-coronated kings and queens, with the occasional tweet of sleep talk, rasping nasal snort of a snore, or draughty rattle of a window frame.
I am awake from a fitful all-night slumber, so I dump myself in the saggy comfort of my battered leather throne and amuse myself watching the lonesome Moth flicker and flutter in the phosphorus white glow of streetlight trickling through the slatted blinds.
My mind is running on a full brimming tank of va-va-vroom petrol, heavy on the clutch, crunching through the gears, wheels spinning too fast, on this road to nowhere and everywhere in this dead of dead night.
Thoughts crash in rolling waves on the pebbled shores of my consciousness, hauling me like a drunken washed-up sailor from the beckoning deep blue waters of sleep.
Thoughts of the Red Blood Supermoon yawning beyond the clouds, the ancient anchor of our Planet, eclipsing and eerie, swelling the tides, rivers, and watercourses.
Thoughts and remembrances of the once young, beautiful, immortal souls lost too soon, buried, cremated, and released. Scattered into the wind and oceans.
Thoughts of chasing the Dream. Of the struggle to make it to the Life.
All these thoughts are swinging like tiny nut cracking hammers, breaking open the shell of my nightly sleep routine. I wonder, in a paranoid gasp of breath, how these heavy psych meds could be responsible for lighting up my inner brain chemistry. I could take a downer, a sleeping pill, to take the edge off. But not tonight. Not on this night of nights.
Everything is still out here in the dark. A peaceful blanket of soulful contemplation, to gather and suffocate these restless first world anxieties snapping at my ankles in the quiet solitude.
And here, in the ham-fisted grip of a low-key all-nighter – the Moth invades my thoughts and silent prayers to the Red Blood Moon – suddenly drawn by the blue light filter of the mobile screen.
The Moth. The eternal seeker of moonlit pathways, who mates once and falls dead from the sky. The Moth. Deceived and bewitched by a million light bulbs, forever doomed by its inner circuit programming to follow a mission impossible. The Moth. Tripping the light fantastic, tattooed death skull adorned on its wings, passing through the half-life of the moon.
And I sense the Moth in the darkness, brushing up close to my mortal coil, raising the future spectacle of the final curtain.
Upstairs the lilting sound of rhythmic snoring, of un-coronated kings and queens, is killing the peace and serenity of my rampaging insomnia stakeout. And, as the dishwasher kicks in, grinding through the gears, the tranquillity karma hotel vibe is dead.
So, I beat a weary path back up the stairs, to lie in the darkness, waiting for the dawn chatter of the morning street birds.
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