"I'll recover somehow."

I take too much pride in my ability to thrive with little sleep. Pride, going just before falls and all, presciences inevitable downfall. I probably over-rely on this gift, for it leaves me with scant margin. I seem to do just fine with four hours sack time, but less than that can really cut into me. I imagine that someone who routinely sleeps two of my short nights' worth, won't so much miss an occasional odd hour or two shortfall, while I most certainly will. Micro sleep usually comes with some sort of travel-related activity. The last night in Vienna might find me sleeplessly waiting up so I won't miss my obscenely early ride to the airport, but little's lost as I'd just as soon crash on the plane crossing the pond, anyway. Giving others a ride to the airport provides a similar experience but with the downside that I'll then need to drive back without losing too much of my consciousness along the way.

Of course necessary stops seem to hinder my return. We rarely drive out airport way, and a few places never seem worth driving that distance unless they're on the way back from there, so it's grueling hours back with me losing a little momentum every minute. By the time we start back up into the foothills, I'm experiencing a genuine out-of-body presence, after each successive stop taking place in increasing psychic twilight, though the morning's hardly begun. My body clock's already somewhere after lunch by mid-morning. It feels like midnight by the time I find my way back home.

The ensuing nap violates most of my personal rules for comportment. One no more naps before noon than turns on the TV before dark. Both remain possible, and each seems to say something significant about the current incumbent, but sleep I do, an unfamiliarly welcomed sleep like sinking into unconditionally appreciative arms. But dreams inevitably ensue, the sort that I cannot ever seem to sort out; vivid and usually disturbing. I will have been kidnapped or otherwise have been done rudely to, and I will not be capable of escaping. I usually awaken after a stormy hour sweat-drenched and shocked, thinking it probably late afternoon but later learning that it's barely afternoon. I feel trapped within a twenty-five hour day.

I stumble zombie-like through the balance of my day's activities, cleaning up the remainders of our guests' presence like a dissociative robot. All feeling's gone from my head and I might just as well be dead from my neck up, beheaded by an extra arm spinning around my clock face. I hardly recognize my place in space and time, then realize that between getting up early to get the coffee and sweet rolls going, driving in a daze through predawn darkness, successfully remembering which lane to slide into to discharge passengers, and the endless losing of right lanes comprising the airport exit road, I somehow survived my small ordeal. Tomorrow, though I'll lose daylight savings time overnight, I'll feel back and right with my little part of the world. For now, I'll grit my teeth and sort of enjoy the deep disorientation the end of almost every little adventure brings. The Muse convened a terrific gathering of her self-proclaimed witch sisters, Grand Otter, and a niece. We ate well, drank better, and parted well-satisfied if a little sleepy. It was a great enough time that no next time seems necessary now. I'll recover somehow.

©2019 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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