The Dark

The human mind is sometimes very cruel.  Mine is, at least.

Since the split with Sihaya, my sleep has been…irregular, at best.  I did not sleep at all the night she was making her decision, and since then, I’ve managed perhaps one full night.  

It hit me on the way home after improv on Thursday night that it had been exactly two weeks since I’d been relatively happy, and I got home with no desire at all for sleep until exhaustion overtook me at 1:30 am.  I had to be at work by 7, and that was made doubly painful by the fact that it was a government holiday, and therefore a day off.  

I held off on napping all afternoon, refrained from going to bed early, desperately hoping to avoid a protracted struggle to return to a normal circadian rhythm.  I went to bed at 11:30, only a little late for me, and looked forward to a long night’s nap.

Instead, I awoke at 5 from a hideous dream in which I sat helpless in the passenger’s seat of a car while a woman I love tries desperately to get in out of the radioactive rain that came after a nuclear holocaust.  In the dream, the door is locked, and I cannot figure out how to unlock it.  Even if I could, I can see that she is soaked to the skin, and I know that she is already dead; if I succeed in letting her in, it will kill me, too.  I am left with nothing but to stay in my seat, a passenger in an unmoving and unmovable car, unable to look away as my lover uses her last gasping breaths to plead for my help.  I know there is no where else to go; the whole world is awash with the same toxic horror that is killing her.  I know also that there is only so long I can stay in the car, and yet I haven’t the courage to go out in the rain and comfort her.  I awaken to the sound of my own voice: Oh, no.  Oh, no.  Oh, no.

I shall not be going to Tai Chi today.  Last week, Sihaya moved from her usual place in the front row to the back.  I had told her, the day before we broke up, that I can’t look at her in class; she’s distracting.  I had intended it to be a compliment, something flirtatious.  She is, after all, beautiful, and the woman I most desire.  I love watching her, but if I permitted myself to do so, I would learn nothing of the form.

But my comment, combined with my presence in the class, caused her to change the way she learns, and I have no wish to do that to her.

It’s beginning to get lighter now, the sky overcast with a purple-gray that is almost lavender.  The birds on the morning shift have begun to show up for work, and as usual, they seem to have had too much Starbucks.

I’ve written before about how remarkable it is for me to even remember my dreams; even so, I wish that my dream had not been so vivid.  I know that I should feel a triumph of sorts, another victory over the pain in my past.

I don’t.

I miss my best friend too much.