Damien Galeone

Baldrick

It’s 3 am and God hates me.

I am sitting in an armchair in my bedroom. I am holding a book, but I am not reading it. I am distracted by my enemy and keep sending glances over the top of the pages to look at him. His flat expanse, his ruffled skin.

The bed.

He mocks me. He has been mocking me for four days. I will kill him.

Every once in a while I suffer a bout of insomnia. I believe that my body and brain just throw me the occasional curve ball to keep my on my toes – things could be a lot worse, bucco, so cheer up! So I take the opportunity to read, watch movies, and send death threats to my bed.

As any insomniac knows, a few nights without sleep cause one to slowly lose their mind. Your mind begins to skew your ability to make clear and reasonable decisions. It’s been four nights. Below is an unofficial journal of sorts of my activity and viewing choices, just in case someone needs to tell this to a mental health professional in a few days.

On the first night I drink warm milk, grow frustrated, and end up on the couch. I watch TV until eventually dozing off around 6 am. Perhaps The Walking Dead and Band of Brothers aren’t the best choices for shows meant to relax and calm. Surely, there is nothing sleep-inducing about eviscerations in the Ardennes or in Georgia.

On the second night I go to the computer. I watch an awful lot of YouTube videos, a suspicious amount of which feature cats, Freddy Mercury, or people getting tortured. I guess I figure that if I am getting tortured, I might as well watch other people get it too. I watch four different Jesuses get whipped, flogged, beaten, and crucified under four different Pontius Pilots. Around 4 am, I start taking “which …. Character are you?” tests online and though this doesn’t help me sleep, I now know that I am Rick in The Walking Dead, Amy Farrah Fowler in The Big Bang Theory, and someone named Blaine from a show called Glee.

On the third night, I go international. I watch some guys sing in French and then start a revolution. Andrea Bocelli, Natalie Lungley, and Ebenezer Scrooge grace my computer screen. I am surprised (and mortified) to find that I am so tired that I understand a Bollywood plot. I have found a cache of internet videos featuring German weight lifters who break bones during dead lifts. I have watched every Black Adder available. I have discovered that its subtext is a code for either a German game show or a secret manifesto naming Nicholas Cage as God.

I believe that I have begun to see through time.

It is night four. At 1 am I pull an armchair from my living room into my bedroom. I cannot watch things anymore. I read. I consider Nicholas Cage, it would explain so much. I don’t read. I sit in the chair, who I have named Baldrick and stare at my bed, who I have named Edmund. Sleep is nowhere close. Maybe I’ll pray to Nicholas Cage.

Insomniacs of the Internet, what do you do when sleep eludes you?