Just Close Your Eyes

I’ve always figured something is wrong with me. It has something to do with the thoughts running around in my mind. The madness up there is tolerable when the sun is out. Sometimes I wonder why we chose these hours to be awake. Who made the rules?

If I made the rules, we would be running around in the moonlight. We would dance in the streets lit by lamp posts. We would lay in green grass and spend more time wishing on shooting stars. We would eat the “most important meal of the day” at 10 PM.

Maybe if I made the rules, we wouldn’t all follow the same clock. Maybe we would be assigned to the day or the night. There could be two separate species on the same floating sphere: the sun breed and the moon breed.

But really, if I made the rules, we wouldn’t have to sleep at all. Problem solved. Our batteries would charge like an iPhone. We would eat six meals a day and work two jobs. Stores would never have to play “Closing Time.”

What’s really wrong with me? It really isn’t the quantity or quality of the thoughts. It has nothing to do with how fast they run. That doesn’t bother me. It’s not that the sun takes away my problems. It’s much more than that. We only really live for half of our lives. What a waste of life. Beds take up so much space. What a waste of space.

I had to tell someone what is wrong with me. There’s no easy answer. There’s no quick fix. Melatonin makes my dreams too vivid. For a while, this was enjoyable. It was almost as if I was living a double life. Trazodone makes the hours I’m awake too treacherous. I hear my bed calling my name all day. It’s hard to recall a time when I didn’t have this problem.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever have the answer. Sometimes I wonder if I need sleep to survive. Maybe it’s all a hoax. It’s not like it’d be the first time the guy who made the rules lied to me. I wish I had made the rules, but I don’t. At least my insomnia isn’t as bad as Tyler Durden’s insomnia in Fight Club. I don’t go around giving fake names to support groups or blowing up buildings. Tyler Durden asks himself, “if you could fight anyone, who would you fight?” I would fight the person who made the rules. I would fight the person who decided that my battery doesn’t last forever.

But, one radiant morning, I woke up and all the things wrong with me seemed to drift away like last night's nightmares. None of it was real. The sun and the moon were no longer real. The stories in my head were never real. Nothing I had ever known was of any purpose on this peculiar morning.

I remember lying in my cloud-like bed that I hated. I wondered why I still had these broken blinds that gave the sun the power my alarm clock was supposed to have. But, something was different. My alarm clock read, “3:00 AM.” I couldn’t let myself panic over assumptions as to why the sun rose earlier today. This is what I wanted, wasn’t it?

I stepped outside into the same, mundane world, just brighter and much more vacant than before. A taxi driver pulled up and I had a strange itch that this was no coincidence. The driver seemed to need me more than I needed him. His faint voice whispered, “it’s time you take the wheel.” Why was the steering wheel on the passenger side? Why was I driving this man’s taxi? I promised myself I would not ask any questions today.

I was not certain I was awake. I steered down a windy road with no turns. Is this my reality or is it just another vivid dream? My thoughts were interrupted when I saw the sparkling heart-shaped locket that dangled from the rearview mirror. It wasn’t sparkling like a fine piece of jewelry or bright like the fireball in the sky. But, my eyes were narrowly focused on the glow.

Within the blink of an eye, the winding roads shifted into a life-threatening obstacle course. The world went dim. I checked the time, but it had only been one minute since I woke up. My body went numb, but ironically, I was undisturbed by it all. I looked at the taxi driver and bit my tongue.

Without a second to overthink and panic over the absurd taxi ride, the man shouted, “it’s time you let go of the wheel.” Now, I understood he was a figment of my imagination. But, not the kind that made me feel crazy like Tyler Durden. It was a thrill I embraced like riding a roller coaster with my hands in the air or cliff jumping into an ocean. I reached my arms up through the sunroof and simply let go of every assumption I had prior to this present moment.

I would never have guessed that a stranger in a taxi would be the doctor who would cure everything that was wrong with me. His shaky hands took the wheel and spun us into a guardrail that did not stand a chance. I guess I should have listened to my dad when he always said to wear my seatbelt. But, he wasn’t much of a risk taker anyways.

Instead of freaking out about the taxi car, or the man in it, I made the choice to comply with my new doctor’s rules. I still don’t have a way to get any answers now that I was free falling through the sky. The taxi and the man are just memories now. It didn’t seem to be light from the sun, but my unplanned skydive had a view lit by a mysterious source.

The only evidence that any of my experience was even real was the heart-shaped locket that splashed next to me just seconds after my body slammed into the open water. I was worried what people would think when I crawled out in my soaked pajamas from the night before. I dug my fingers into the muddy sand, pulling myself up to shore. But, there were much greater things to worry about than the way I looked or where I came from.

I had never seen this world or any of its occupants before. I figured if the taxi drive meant anything, the locket must too. Inside the locket, there was an address written in fine print. But, how would I get there in a world so unrecognizable?

An elegant individual on a phone call generously stopped to help me. It was time I let my tongue free from between my teeth. I asked, “what day is it today?” The good news is that only one day had passed since I had gone to sleep the night before. But, the fascinating news is I had traveled ten years into the future.

There were no taxis in this world. I hopped into a vehicle, which drove itself. My only hope was that this address inside the locket would give me answers, so I trusted the silly piece of jewelry more than I had ever trusted someone before.

I was dropped off at a mysterious building, and greeted by a familiar face. I thought he could be from a dream. The truth is, we had already met just one day before. Not only had we already met, we were partners in his experiment. This was a lot to process.

His new dream reading technology was built for dreamers, as well as, insomniacs. It was an experience for the future, and the past. It was beneficial for the ordinary mind, the anxious mind, and the subconscious mind. These were all things the scientist, and my subconscious self knew, but there was one thing neither of us had expected when we tested out the machine.

Although I did not remember him or the experiment, I relied on him to give me answers. On his advanced technology, he showed me my experience in the taxi and free falling through the sky. This all made me feel special in a way I had never experienced. I wondered why I was chosen to play a part in this. The two of us discovered why the light of the world kept flickering throughout my dream. It has something to do with what I thought was wrong with my mind.

The night I had fallen asleep during the experiment, I had been handed the power to decide when the lights of the world would flicker on and off. The machine and my mind partnered up like a duo the world had never seen before. This new life allowed me to choose the sun and moon patterns, and no one would question it. That’s just the way it is now thanks to the dream machine. I’m sure the unnatural switch from night to day shocked the world at first, but they must be used to it now, it’s been ten years.

I walked outside again and admired the new world, which I had so gracefully time traveled to in my dream. Instead of dwelling on the out of body experience of the past day, or should I say, ten years, I decided to move forward. I didn’t want to ask anymore questions.

My new superhuman powers gave me the power to speed up time or slow it down. This is all I really wanted anyways. This was the answer I had been searching for. My powers worked as simply as thoughts crossing through my mind like cars on a highway. The light would go on, and then it would go off again. This is my life now, and I make the rules.