Chinese Confession - The Ramblings of Insomnia

When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep...and you're never really awake. I echo these words of Tyler Durden. They are all too true.

It is 5am. I have never had the luxury of being a morning person – one of those lucky people who, with every passing day, hold the future of the world in their hands. Their ability to shake off the shackles of sleep and vanquish the foe that is their own mind holding them captive to innumerable, random illusions of its own creation is something beyond my own comprehension. They wake up bright eyed and filled with optimism and appreciation for those little things that make us non-morning people nauseous. The beauty of a sunrise as the light breaks out across the sky, the smell of the morning dew on the grass, the taste of a well prepared breakfast, or even the priceless moments of peace, quiet, and meditation that are so seldomly found during the daytime hours but are so richly abundant during that short time before the world swings into motion. These are the true beauties of life. To appreciate them, to find solace in them, and to relish in them is to know the truly good life. I hate them all.

I don’t hate morning people; I just hate mornings. Morning is like one of those ideas that sounds great on paper but is horrible when it becomes reality. Even now, as I stare at this screen with my eyes blood shot and my empty stomach screaming for substance, I can hardly tolerate any of it. I do not enjoy the luxury of being a “morning person”. Instead, I am subject to it. For me, nearly everyday I must begin with a full-fledged war. Somehow I have to raise my own eyelids, which have inexplicably become about ten times heavier through the night. I have to clear my foggy mind and somehow get the nerves that run through my brain and my body to fire at their normal breakneck speed. Then I have to somehow dislodge myself from the comforts of a warm, welcoming bed. How any person can do this is incomprehensible, especially if must be done at a moments notice with an alarm tearing through the silence that was once a blissfully peaceful night. If this particular moment happens to be before sunrise, then it worsens immeasurably. Every time an alarm goes off, a kitten or a puppy dies. I’m just sure of it. This moment then ushers in the battle of will versus physical tendencies and (thank Galileo and Newton for this one) inertia. Yes, the very concept of inertia, I am convinved, was actually discovered while observing the sleeping habits of people. After all, it does state that a body in motion tends to stay in motion, while a body at rest tends to stay at rest. Perhaps the key then is to become somnambulant. If anyone has any suggestions or information on how to become somnambulant, please let me know. It would be especially nice if the exertions could be channeled into something productive like doing my homework or cleaning the bathroom. But I digress.

At this point in my rambling, I’m sure that you are wondering why I of all people would be awake and even engaged in the process of writing this when it goes completely against my nature. Believe me when I say that I wish this were not the case today. However, there are forces that are so strong, so compelling, and so unpleasant that I can hardly bear to speak of them. These very powers have the ability to shake walls, to make babies cry, to drive others to complete madness. They may even be carcinogenic. Who knows? I don’t think anyone has actually done a study on it, but since everything seems to be linked to cancer these days, why not this too? Not everyone has this divine power nested within themselves. What is so amazing is this power cannot be called upon at will. It is beyond their control. They may not even realize that they have it, and they never witness it for themselves. Only when they are completely unaware of it does it truly break free and wreak havoc on the calm and unsuspecting world around it. I wonder if the people that foster this power know just how much damage they truly do. I often ask others if I engage in such destructive and purely evil behavior. Thus far I have proven to be free from it. But even as I type this, my roommate is demonstrating a particularly unique talent for this action. I am talking, of course, about snoring.

Yes, my morning died quite prematurely today. My dreams were wrenched from me when my roomate found what must have been a delightfully comfortable position during his nighttime shifting and turning. His head was cocked back at a hazardous angle, his legs bunched up, and his arms rested carelessly and extended to each side. It was in this position that suddenly the quite of the night was destroyed. I opened my eyes abruptly to search for the source of such an unbearably raucous noise, and lamentably found it to be merely a few feet from me. It was him. I tried everything I could to vanquish this unwelcome predator to my sleep. Nothing prevailed. My pillow is too stiff to be wrapped around my head to cover my ears. My own attempts to retaliate by raising more commotion would be entirely too much, especially considering the walls that separate us from our neighbors, although capable of bearing the weight of the floors above them, offer the acoustic protection of merely a couple of pieces of paper put together. So convert my pillow into a carefully aimed and finely tuned weapon would probably cause a breach in our international relations. Truly I was at odds.

The snoring is vile beyond description. Every intake of breath is accented by rapid, low pulsations that echo throughout the chamber that is our room. They are so low and powerful that not even the pillow that I tried to hold strategically around my head and covering my ears was able to block it. I can only compare it to the violent sound of a tommy gun and a jack hammer combined. I can distinctly hear every single pulse in this rapid succession, and I hate each one more than the last. Just when they become so intense that I fear my own retaliation and nearly lose all self control, they stop. Relief. It is over. This thought, however, is premature and truly ignorant. Just as this feeling of relief brings comfort to my afflicted self, the air is once again pierced, but this time by the horrid sound of expelling gas that lasts for seconds. During the daytime hours, I hear it all the time. It’s that same noise that issues from the airbrakes of the buses that run through the town. It is powerful and loud enough that it can cause serious hearing damage if one is too close at that critical moment. Somehow, this very force is being produced by my roommate, and not just by him, but merely by his lungs and nose!

This pattern continues endlessly. The jackhammer. A brief pause. A sudden expulsion of air. Jackhammer. Expulsion of air. Jackhammer. Expulsion of air. Jackhammer. Explusion of air. This is the cycle of insanity. I am beginning to lose control. I am so tired that I could just as soon kill or destroy anything that would dare to stand between myself and sleep. My roommate is doing just that, and I hate him for it. It’s not a true, long-lasting hatred, but certainly an at-the-moment kind of hatred.

Jackhammer. Explusion of air. Jackhammer. Explusion of air.

I can’t even think clearly at this point. It shocks me that my simmering anger is not audible at this point, and I want nothing more that to lash out and strike the source of this unbearable uproar – repeatedly. I want it to physically feel the agony and affliction that it is causing me, but I can’t. I just can’t bring myself to do it, at least not yet. Who knows? If it goes on for long enough, I may just go insane.

Jackhammer. Expulsion of air. Jack hammer. Explusion of air.

Unable to bear any more, I jump out of bed. I no longer hate my roommate at this moment. I loathe him. I look out the window. It is dark. A strange cloud has filled the air of the city that I see. This I discovered only after opening the balcony door to step out and hopefully find peace in the more quiet air outside, making as much noise as possible in the process in the vain hope that it will disturb my roommate and cause him to shift positions. Barely had I begun my first step out onto the balcony when a noxious air pierced my nose. It is fowl. Never has it been so thick and deplorable. The air here is by no means clean, but this night it is particularly bad. You can literally see this pernicious filth. Visibility has been reduced to a quarter mile at best. I wonder how anyone is even alive at this point. I can see a few lights in the high rises outside. I wonder if these people had breathed in the fumes, and in their desperate fight to not die from the poison, had turned on their lights, as if its presence alone would spare them from certain death. Or perhaps these same people have been awoken by the same disturbing raucous that my roommate is producing. It’s possible. They are, after all, a mere quarter of a mile away. Their building is barely visible amongst the smog. It’s so bad, in fact, that I make a note to myself to try to not go outside the next day (a sign of the naïve hope that I perhaps will be able to enjoy the luxurious comfort of sleep again soon). I close the door quickly and lock it. I begin pacing the room.

Jackhammer. Expulsion of air. Jackhammer. Explusion of air.

He mocks me. In his dreams he is holding a giant magnifying glass and I am a tiny ant. He focuses the sunlight on me, and it burns my flesh as I writhe in pain. This is the only possible explanation for such brutal treatment. All I want to do is sleep! I continue pacing the room.

Jackhammer. Explusion of air. Jackhammer. Explusion of air.

I throw open the door that opens to the hallway, again making as much noise as possible. I half expect to see everyone out in the hall talking about what could possibly be making so much noise. To my surprise, there is nobody. Instead my nostrils are greeted again by the very noxious smog that is so pervasive in the nighttime air outside. There is no doubt in my mind that this air truly is carcinogenic. The doors to the balcony at the end of the hall are open, and the smog has crept within our building. I quickly retreat to my room, making a note to myself to try to not go outside of our room the next day (naïve optimism speaking again) because not even the air in the hall is breathable.

Jackhammer. Explusion of air. Jackhammer. Explusion of air.

Suddenly, the harsh reality of the situation truly weighs down on me. I am trapped. My hatred for my roommate and his compulsory snoring is no longer simmering. It is boiling and consuming me. I could beat him with my pillow right now. It would save all of us in the building from continual nights of agony. But I give up. I move to my desk, turn on my computer and pull out my headphones. If I can’t sleep, I can at least turn on some music and drown out the echoing roar that fills my room. That is, of course, assuming that these headphones are even capable of drowning out such noise in the first place.

And thus I am found in my present condition. My eyes are red and blood shot. My body is fatigued. My brain stretches to pull these words from nowhere. I’m hungry, but I have no food. I’m thirsty, but all I have is water, which is hardly appealing to my cravings at the moment. I write this blog as means of coping. It’s relaxing. It helps me identify those things that torment me (not that such a feat is particularly difficult at this very moment, seeing as the source of the walls shaking and the dust falling from the vibrating ceiling is quite obvious). I really don’t want to kill my roommate, but this raucous is unbearable. He is a genuinely good guy. He has expressed nothing but kindness, consideration, and welcoming to me. Perhaps this snoring is just the other side of his personality lashing out against the world that may have treated him so unfairly in the past. I have no idea. So for now, my writings will have to be my escape.