ER 1: A Few Words On Sleep

         Ah, the night, a small window of silence. The period of time between the days, both old and new. The time when the rest of humanity lies quiet in repose.
         But not this human. For me, the night fulfils a different perspective. While the world sleeps, I lie awake, kept from slumber by increased awareness of my own thoughts. It is only when you can get the people around you to shut the holes of nonsense in their faces that you can hear your most intimate thoughts. So I lie awake, while the rest of Virginia sleeps.
         Sleep. . . How I loathe the thought of that which I love the most. My only exit from the agonizing burden of reality, yet the very thing that makes it so painful.
         It taunts me, you see; it shows me all the things I could have been, could one day be. It portrays my most intimate desires and brings them to life in my mind. It knows me inside and out, what will scare me the most, what will hurt me the most, and what will make me curse the entities that conceived me, for causing me to suffer out this life that they unwittingly created and destroyed.
         This conflict with sleep is not new, though it has changed. The fight between myself and slumber has taken a different form, but the aggression has lost none of its potency. I once struggled to sleep, lying awake for hours, tossing an turning, seeking the peace of repose. The cruel, relentless insomnia drove me to the brink of insanity.
         The tables, however, have turned. I now flee from sleep instead of pursue it. I avoid it whenever possible. I feel as though my thoughts are muddled by it, this inactivity of consciousness. Without it, I am more aware of my creative senses. Such art the sleep-deprived mind can create, you cannot imagine.
         As time goes by, I become increasingly disgusted with the torrent of nonsense pumped into my head during slumber. I recoil from the sickening images flashed in my mind. Once so innocent dreams of dancing in fairy rings dissolve into gaudy raves, and scenes of friendship give way to obscene erotic fantasies, causing me to question my purity. Sleep has soiled me from head to toe on the inside, and I fear the outside will shortly follow.