28
I wake to a shadow at my bedside, a humanoid figure that’s a concentration of darkness. The pixilation typical to my vision is richer, but whereas in some cases I’m able to contemplate a whole progression of waking thoughts in that millisecond it takes me to start waking, this time there’s nothing but abrupt alarm. I shout, although I don’t know if it’s in panic or in warning. The shadow disappears. Then it’s me being awake. Fully. I check the time: just after 1.34am. And it feels like that, like it’s not too deep into the early morning. Most of these encounters occur around this time. There’d be a medical…
27
I lay awake in bed, the ringing in my ears loud, the restlessness pulsing in my body. There’s no sleepiness. I am tired, coming off little sleep, the weight of the day fueling my exhaustion, but sleep’s something that washes off my body, leaving now just this: the early morning dissonance. The thoughts that flit through my mind are disordered. I think about the story for a screenplay I’m reworking, and then another screenplay that I’m meant to rework; the revision for my sci-fi novel, and the struggle to reshape it; the book I desperately want to write; and then, memories of my best friend, and my ex, both jostling…