digital_opium

Insomnia sucks ass.

That is all.

It's two o'clock in the morning.

I went to bed over two hours ago, exhausted from a long day and too little sleep yesterday.

And yet here I am, wide awake.

I woke up with stories. Just... floods and floods of stories. Stories that I desperately, desperately want to tell.

The catch is, they're not my stories.

They're yours.

Somehow, I've missed that along the way I've met some of the most incredible people. With incredible stories. The tragedy, I think, is that most of the people I've met never realize how absolutely fascinating they are. They've lived tales that I never will, done things I'll never do, seen things that I'll... but you know? I have seen those things, lived those tales, because they've been shared with me.

I absolutely yearn to tell those stories. I wonder, if names were changed to protect the innocent and the not so pure, I wonder how many of you would recognize yourselves. Each other. How many of you would be surprised at how I see you? How you've painted yourselves to me? Would you be surprised at how much of what you've told me, how much of what you've seen and done I remember? Would you be surprised at how some of the tiniest details I remember? I wonder how many of those tiny details I remember, and how many I've changed, tweaked in my mind to make the story more romantic, more tragic, more exciting.

That's what story-tellers do, after all. We take what we know, what we've seen, what we've collected and we spin it together, twine it with dreams and facts and fantasy and then we offer it to friends and family and strangers, hoping to enthrall.

Shall I tell you a story? Shall I start with... Once upon a time... It was a dark and stormy night... A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... Perhaps I could begin with 'So there I was, hanging upside down...'

But I won't start with any of those things. They've already been uttered by fairy-tale spinners far more talented than I.

So let's start with...

I met a boy, not long ago. He's the arch typical New Yorker. Or more accurately, the arch typical Brooklynite. He has the most wonderful accent. I have a thing for accents, you see, and listening to this boy speak, it's such a delicious tickle across my aural palate. "Fugedaboudit..." Yes, I've heard him say it. Sometimes when he's poking fun at himself, sometimes when he's so engrossed in telling a story that it just trips across his lips without a second thought. His father was a New York firefighter until he retired; his brother works as a firefighter now. It's almost too perfect, isn't it?

I suppose I've known him for about a year now. I didn't actually get to know him a bit better until just recently. The first time I remember seeing him, he was in the middle of cussing out people for being fucking morons. His words, not mine, though I would easily agree with his assessment. But just recently, I got a chance to talk to him more often, and I've heard him tell some funny, interesting, clever stories.

The one that sticks with me though, is the story that he tells of 9/11 - the fact that he was a mere block and a half away from the World Trade Center that day. I wish I could tell you the story exactly the way he told it to me. He kept apologizing for being so long-winded... but the fact that his story took perhaps an hour and a half to tell isn't really all that remarkable.

It haunts him, I think. Every single second of that morning is burned so deeply into his psyche. That's almost a silly thing to say. There are people who were a continent away who are scarred by that morning. How does a person live through damn near Ground Zero without scars?

"I looked up and saw a beam snap out from the corner of that building, Beddy, and as I watched, a cloud of billowing white smoke came out of the hole in the side. I remember thinking, 'What is the white smoke, and where is it coming from?'" He even sounded a little bit puzzled when he told me that part. "And then the ground began to shake... I didn't find out until later that the building falling caused an earthquake that made it difficult to run. I just know that when I turned and told the girl I rode to work with to run, I couldn't move for a few seconds."

He paused for a bit at that point. "I'm not proud of a few things that happened that morning. To this day I regret not grabbing her hand. I just yelled at her to run, and took off." And there was more silence. I wasn't sure what to say. How do you offer sympathy or support to someone for an event that... well, no one knows how they'll react in a such a situation, do they? "I saw a homeless man in front of me, and I'm ashamed to say how clearly I remember debating whether to grab him or jump over him. He was facing me, looking behind me, seeing what was coming. I tell you, Beddy, the look on his face terrified me like nothing before that, and nothing since. I jumped over him and kept running."

I could go on with his words. But I could never do his story justice. Suffice it to say, he was safe, his friend was safe... the homeless man made it to safety. He told me how pitch black engulfed them when the wave of debris and smoke and rubble caught up to them. He painted a picture of a stranger covered in pulverized, powder fine concrete and looking like he'd been beaten with bags of flour, the only skin showing from tears streaking down his cheeks. He described the sheer amount of time it took them to walk toward home to let his family know he was safe. He only knew the second tower fall when the air grew dark again and people started running once more.

I'm running out of steam, it's almost three in the morning. This hour has gone by so fast. I don't know how to end his story. I don't think his story has really ended. He told me there are times when he wakes up in a cold sweat, hearing a truck rumbling by in the street and he's instantly thrown back to that day, the ground shuddering under his feet. I don't think that story ever really ends.

He's a wonderful person. I think of all the people I've met, whether we're still friends or we've parted ways, are wonderful people. Every one of you has stories. I just itch to tell them all. But what an ethical dilemma.

I'm sleepy again. I think, now that one story has escaped, I might have room for a bit more rest.

Dogs out.

Email checked. Twice.

Dishes done.

Kitchen clean.

Laundry... in progress.

After three hours of sleep.

And so begins the insomnia.

Perhaps I'll write something.

Dear Brain,

I went to bed early. Lights out, in bed, snoozing away.

I was being good.

Why do you insist on only letting me get a couple of hours of sleep? I'm tired. See? Yawning.

I know there's stress. It will get better soon.

Stop with the nightmares about tornados and moving, and packing rooms of furniture and crap that doesn't exist. It's getting old.

I've had it. Let me sleep or I'm going on strike.

No love,

Me

P.S. That last dream about the pretty boys in cowboy hats a la a certain upcoming movie? That one you can rerun anytime.