" … sleep decided to stay out all night carousing with unreputable friends."

The Hunter's Moon, the final full moon before we set about setting back time this season, introduces a sort of circadian arrhythmia. It's a relatively bright moon, given that night has already fallen by the time it shows up. The Autumn air seems thinner and shadows streak the neighborhood until just before dawn. The nightlight seems particularly bright and sleep grows disinterested in her usual engagement. I lie awake lying to myself, pretending to feel sleepy, closing my eyes without amping down my suddenly hyperactive brain even a tiny bit. I'm raring to go with nowhere to go, playing solitaire charades until I finally just abandon the ruse. Not yet two am, but I'm up and wandering the halls already.

I search for Rose The Skittish Spinster Cat, concerned that she might have slipped into some inescapable corner of the place. She hadn't shown up for last call. I remember carting out recycling just before I pretended to go to bed and she never once showed up to steal space, which is absolutely unlike her. I open the door to the garage and check the usual closets she tends to trap herself in, but she doesn't show. I suppose that she, too, is off somewhere working through her circadian arrhythmia, perhaps stalking a mouse, real or catnip, and too engaged to sleep or canoodle. I might as well brew up some decaf in deference to this day started halfway through the so-called night. I step outside to cast some moon shadow myself and witness streaming layers of cloud cover hardly shading my midnight sunshine.

I might as well read, I reason, while sipping my thick bitter brew. I've little else to do. I could write but today's story wants more cogitation before coming out. I need a decent distraction in lieu of the finest distraction, sleep. Reading works but the news seems simply grim. Someone won the lottery, though the pundits universally agree that winning it can only ruin the unfortunate soul. Inherit more than a billion dollars and instantly ruin your life. Almost everyone would volunteer for a taste of that particular poison. Before the lottery's drawn, everyone hopes to become a winner. After, only the winner loses big, they say. I take a moment to savor my good fortune. I've still not figured out how to play the lottery, so I seem to effortlessly win every time. I'm in no danger of ruining my life tonight … or this morning … whatever this time might be.

My body shuns the need for sleep. I think I should feel sleepy but I don't and I'm reasonably confident that I won't soon. Shortly after this searing moon sets, an October sun will rise and the day will devise ten thousand fresh distractions to deflect any sleepiness. The Muse has a meeting scheduled off in some suburban ghetto halfway to Kansas tonight, so she'll take the car this morning and not return until sometime after nine tonight. She'll show up famished and I will have followed her across the city on my handy Find A Friend iPhone app. I should be plating just as she opens the garage door and, like every time before, we'll quickly swallow supper while sitting next to each other before deciding that it might just about be time to start pretending to be tired and sleepy again.

I will suspend my disbelief, or at least convincingly try to suspend my disbelief, before wrestling with my insidiously sneaky pillows again. This could not otherwise approach believable theater. One pillow will escape to the floor, taking my iPhone cord and the iPhone down with a muffled thump. Rose might show up about then to argue in favor of occupying her own personal Louisiana Purchase, nudging me into the least comfortable corner on the top of the covers. The Muse crawls beneath the covers then spends the night shoving them off herself. I curl up on top of them, then cede half my space to the always insistent cat. It's hardly surprising when I peek around my book pile after tossing and trying to turn to find it's not quite two am yet, again, and discover that sleep decided to stay out all night carousing with unreputable friends.

©2018 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #FallingSideways, #PureSchmaltz