sleep
The moments before getting to sleep can be darkly soulless, wonderfully optimistic, or merely a delay until you can get up and go to your next event. When waiting for something exciting to happen the next day, knowing that you are due to go somewhere highly anticipated or see someone wonderful, the minutes or hours spent trying to will yourself into slumber are the dead time, prompting either fantastical imaginings or depressive self-appraisals.
There are times when you know that you're not going to get to sleep. The room may be too warm or too cold. You may be used to certain blankets or pillows, which aren't there. There may be too many fragments of thoughts and memories and feelings circulating in your head to allow you to drift peacefully away. While the best thing is to clear your mind, that's the last thing possible because every other part of you is still and your imagination is the substitute for motion.
You hope that you will be able to fall asleep soon, while keeping yourself awake by reliving mistakes or watching your memories. When sleep comes, there is a millisecond of conscious gratitude that all this can be kept for another time, before falling away.
There are times when you know that you're not going to get to sleep. The room may be too warm or too cold. You may be used to certain blankets or pillows, which aren't there. There may be too many fragments of thoughts and memories and feelings circulating in your head to allow you to drift peacefully away. While the best thing is to clear your mind, that's the last thing possible because every other part of you is still and your imagination is the substitute for motion.
You hope that you will be able to fall asleep soon, while keeping yourself awake by reliving mistakes or watching your memories. When sleep comes, there is a millisecond of conscious gratitude that all this can be kept for another time, before falling away.
