no man's land
it's one of those impossible nights when a heavy leaden sleep is gently pressing itself on every part of me, except for my mind, which cannot seem to sit still at all. it's one of those nights where my eyes are clamped shut from genuine exhaustion, but no sleep is forthcoming. and that is an odd little thing - odd enough to provoke me out of bed into this post. you see, i'm always at a loss to distinguish between the closed eyes of sleep and of sleeplessness, since from an external point of view the two are exactly the same. but from the inside, from that dark hemisphere behind your eyes, the difference is a substantial one. how does the closed eye go from seeing/conscious/awake to unseeing/unconscious/asleep?
i have, on many occasions, attempted to stay conscious in order that i might witness this confounding transition. needless to say, this proved counterproductive, and i never fell asleep. the best i've been consciously able to notice is a kind of shadowed, velvety haze that blooms up the insides of my eyelids, and a vague sensation of physically drifting downwards as various muscles unknot. on the rare occasion that i catch this sequence in the process, i'm then consciously able to say that i am about to fall asleep. but usually, any overt articulation of this fact in my head yanks me back to a more conscious state, which means that i am no longer about to fall asleep. and so the vicious cycle grinds on.
the nebulous country between the conscious and unconscious state is, annoyingly, uncharted and unchartable territory. however, given my disgruntled, sandy-eyed mental restlessness over the last two hours up until this moment, it's a place i'd very much like to inhabit now, please, thankyouverymuch. one hopes, goodnight.