08 Oct 2008

Last night I did a little experiment with myself. I did not drink. I did not take any medication (though in fact you should say I did, but that I'll explain later). I watched healthy TV and wanted to see if I was capable of sleeping naturally.

I haven't been to sleep since.

It is absolutely horrible. Started with the first stroke of midnight. The dreadfulness and fear starts kicking in. Also the excitment of the anticipation of blessed natural sleep. But why am I not even yawning yet. "Nah, do not worry. It is still early by your standards. It will happen."

One episode. Two episodes. 1:15 am. Time for a smoke. Thank goodness the TV freak is still alive opposite.

Three episodes. Four episodes. Smoke? Nah, can wait. Five episodes. Back is aching. 3:40am. My neighbours opposite are ALL asleep. Except for a random bulb in the toilet here and there. I am still standing here, smoking my trusty Viceroy Menthol Lights in my PJs. Hair fuzzy, vision fuzzy. Long, deep drags on the ciggarette. When did it all come to this.

I was pleasantly surprised when I looked up and realised there are quite a number of twinkling
smiles looking down on me. Like the gentle soldiers of the night sky watching over its humble beings in this mundane world.

I had this conversation about stars with many people. But before I rattle on about this possible crazy theory I came up with with a schoolmate of mine, I need to talk about light. Speed of light. Many of us would have heard of the phrase many a times in our life. Very simply, it just states that there is a way to measure light. By its speed. So light compared to some may travel at a very high speed. To others (which I have not known what) light may travel at a slower speed. So light actually needs time to travel to reach our eyes. Be it short or long.

Light bounces off the book you have in front of you almost instantly and thus you see the book now in present times. Light bounces off the plant in front of you almost instantly too and thus you see the plant in present times too. That's because the distance is so short, its practically feat-less for light to travel at maximum top speed (ie. immediate).

Our twinkling soldiers, stars, however, are so so far away from us. Words can't simply explain how far are they away from us. Except that they are so far away that when light bounces off them, it takes such a long for light to travel back to our eyes for us to be able to see them that the stars we see today, now, are in fact stars of the past. For example, one ray of light started its bounce away from the star one day ago. Light took one day to travel back to earth to our eyes. So meaning to say this star that we are seeing now was actually a star from one day ago. Makes sense? Well at least I think it did. (I did not come up with this theory myself. We actually read about it off somewhere, I can't remember where.) So our theory is, if we, humans, the most intellectual race of the modern fictitious world of ours, can capture this theory of the speed of light and actually grasp the concept, can we not then see into the past? After all the stars we will be seeing tonight will be from one, two, three or even more days ago. Comprehendo?

Back to my long endless night. After that ciggarette and that train of thoughts I retreated back to my room and continued the arduous repitition of my rountine. TV, smoke, TV, smoke. It came to a point of frustation when I wanted so badly to sleep but I simply cannot. I would doze off from the TV only to wake up seconds later. F**k! I have to wake up at 7am later! Desperation drove me to turn to the remaining sips of cough mixture I had left. *Gulp!* That should do the trick. I cuddled under my sheets in eager anticipation of the impending sleep. Tick tock tick tock. This doesn't feel right. Why am I not sleeping yet? Tick tock tick tock. It's almost 6am. My alarm's going off fearfully soon. Tick tock tick tock. Wait, this feels weird. I'm not feeling sleepy but yet a strange kind of high-ness. Groggy, vision-blurred. Head is spinning a little. Is that a flash of light that I am seeing? That a shadow or? But wait, my eyes are closed. This is not right. Though it all feels kinda nice but I can't be allowing these when I have to work in a while! I pushed all these experiences with the last ounce of mind power I had. I have to sleep! Forced sleep is better than none.

Daybreak begins. It is another part of the day which I absolutely detest. I hate to watch the sunlight slowly creep up against my curtains and spreading its horrific wings all across my room. To me, its marks another sleepless night and I have survived another midnight ordeal to watch the ugly sun rise upon me.

I took one last look at my clock. Ten more minutes before it rings. I am desperate. I need to sleep. I closed my eyes and prayed. Suddenly the sleeping power of the cough mixture decided to stir within my body, at the wrongest time possible. F**k, I thought to myself. I may have said it out I don't know. I think, in my half-awakeness, I did fall asleep for about ten to five minutes and my clock went crazy on me.

I wobbled out of bed, still faint and groggy from the high I had from the cough mixture, cursing and swearing all the way to the bathroom.