A good sleep is really important, but a timely sleep is a luxury.
I spin excuses for my sleepless night—important work, they say; the night’s sacred silence, they whisper; it’s my choice, and I give up at my own words. Yet the flickering yellow streetlight outside my window knows me better than most; it has become my midnight confessor. It watches me with the patience of forgotten lovers waiting for messages that will never come. Through the mist, it casts shadows, all my metaphors are lost in the distance—perhaps to distract itself from my own wandering thoughts, perhaps to find meaning in our shared solitude; solitude, and shared, what an irony! And when I glance back, caught in this dance of light and shadow, it remains, steadfast in its watch, as if time itself has paused in this moment.
Nights make it easy for memories to overwhelm me. All my pretenses fade away in the mist, leaving a light chill on my skin. My carefully built mindset—the choice of pride over happiness—collapses under the weight of past ghosts drifting through the thin clouds. The years of hidden tears linger on my eyelids, and all I want is to sleep. I can’t tell if I yearn for the past or simply for sleep itself.
Sometimes it even asks me, “Where does your anger lie?” I reply, “No one, I hate no one, I have no enemies.” Then it probes deeper, “Who are you yearning for?” I answer, “No one, people have wronged me, and so have I to them.” It continues, “What are you expecting?” I find myself lost, saying, “I don’t know, I just want to sleep.”
Am I your friend, Meursault? Do you understand me? In trying to know you, perhaps I am learning to know myself. The questions linger in the air, heavy with unspoken truths, as the streetlight watches over me. In this quiet exchange, I realize, but what I do not write in this journal.
Tonight, I find myself writing in the dark, yet the streetlight across the street seems to be watching someone else. I gaze at it, and it offers no questions, no comfort. Do I win now? A wave of drowsiness washes over me. Should I fight to keep my eyes open a little longer? To rebel against the night, to resist its quiet claim over me, or to surrender and let the darkness take me?