Insomnia: Circa 2020

I found this excerpt that I wrote in June of 2020.

I just wanted to share it.

” I should be asleep. Or trying to sleep. Tossing, turning. Listening to the sound of my bedside fan envelope my eardrum like I was standing in a wind tunnel. But, with the added reoccuring noise that is my spouse snoring.

Instead, I keep glancing at my bookshelf. Ignoring the dust from months of procrastinated dusting. Looking right past all the clutter that rests ontop like the snow at the top of a mountain in some generic photo, I only focus on one sort of small, white box.

I can’t see the label on the top of it from where I’m sitting. But I know what it says.

Marvin Dale Cole. 8/31/57- 3/2/15.

Just typing it gives me goosebumps. The back of my neck gets cold, like on a winter morning. A slight rush of brisk air seems to travel down my spine and down my bare arm simultaneously, like when you’re walking up the stairs late at night and you get this sudden rush of what feels like someone behind you. But, there isn’t.

It’s been over five years. It seems like more, but less at the same time. Maybe time stood still, and this is just some alternate universe. Maybe in the real world he didn’t pass. Maybe my sister didn’t either. Maybe in the real world they are still here, and I’m the one gone. Maybe this is all just my own little torture chamber. Maybe it’s all of ours.

Maybe it isn’t.

Maybe they’re together. Maybe sometimes they gather together, like….on Fridays. They meet by some beautiful golden gate, and they hold hands til they get inside. They turn the TV on, and OPE.

There I am. There we all are. And there they sit. Smiling and laughing. Cringing and covering their eyes like, Oh gosh. What are we gonna do with this guy?

Maybe they share a pitcher of margaritas. Or a bowl of popcorn, anxiously awaiting the other to grab a handful so they can go in for another big grab, spilling random kernels everywhere as they take turns shoveling it in.

Maybe they don’t gather at all. Maybe it’s too hard. Maybe they aren’t watching together. Maybe they aren’t watching at all. Maybe they aren’t anything. Just gone.

Poof.

Maybe they just visit how they can. A firefly in the summer evening. Maybe a dragonfly, or a butterfly. Hell, it’s my family…maybe a scorpion, or a yellow jacket ready to sting that ass. Maybe not.

Maybe just a sudden change in the air behind you. A cold breeze that lingers for a bit.

Maybe just that brisk coldness that travels down your spine and arm simultaneously as you walk up the stairs.”