I stay up really, really late, usually until about one or two in the morning. I don’t suffer from insomnia; I just can’t handle acknowledging a day’s end. It makes me feel like I’m one day closer to death. And sleeping makes me feel like I’m wasting time; the idea of being unconscious while time is ticking along without me is incredibly unnerving to me. (Such pleasant thoughts, right?) Anyway, most nights, I stay up late and either read, write or… think.
At 2 a.m. in my dark, quiet house, my brain is free to wander uninhibited. Alone with my thoughts, I can convince myself anything is plausible, no matter how absurd.
For instance:
I will be eaten by a zombie. It goes like this: I’m walking my dog, minding my own business, and I see his furry little body go stiff. His hackles rise and he’s staring into the dark, zeroing in on something my inferior human eyes can’t make out. I freeze too. Did that bush just move? There is no wind. How did that bush move if there is no wind??? BECAUSE THERE IS OBVIOUSLY A ZOMBIE CROUCHING IN THAT BUSH. And even though everyone knows zombies are so slow you’d have to be lumbering around on bloody thigh stumps to not be able to outrun one (Walking Dead, I have so many questions), I still sprint back to my house faster than Usain Bolt.
I will be abducted by aliens. The entire paragraph above, except instead of zombies, aliens, and instead of being eaten, being probed. I am terrified of being probed. Go ahead and imbue that last statement with as much metaphorical significance as you want. Believe me, it will all be accurate.
I will look in a darkened mirror and see Bloody Mary staring back at me. I don’t even say “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Ma—” (STOP you can’t say it three times or she’ll materialize and rip off your face) but like, she doesn’t need any reason to drop in if it’s two in the morning.
Someone will break into my house and kill me. He will use a glass cutter. He will slice a perfect circle in my sliding glass door and pop it out in complete silence. He will reach a gloved hand through the hole and slide the little switch the one centimeter necessary to unlock my sliding glass door. He will do all sorts of terrible things to me (like tickling me until I cannot breathe), then murder me in the bloodiest, most painful way possible. I know I should also say something about fearing for the lives of my family, but another thing that happens at two a.m. is that I become incredibly self-absorbed.
I have an idea for a million dollar invention. My eyelids are screaming at me to go to bed already BUT WAIT I HAVE AN IDEA AND I MUST CONSIDER ALL THE ANGLES. However: I either a) don’t write down the idea and hate myself the next morning when I can’t remember it or b) I write down the idea, wake up the next day, read it, and laugh-cry over what a dumbass I am. I bet all the ideas I forget to write down are the real million dollar babies.
Spiders. Spiders everywhere. The tiniest twitch in my peripheral vision IS DEFINITELY A SPIDER. Actually, I have seen many a spider at two in the morning. This is not an unreasonable concern.
Do you ever stay up way too late thinking of weird crap? SHARE. TELL ME. The weirder, the better. I need to be validated.
8 Comments
You should write a blog post about your million dollar ideas. 🙂 I am totally the same – not zombies, but all the ways I am going to die. I may write one of these too!
I feel EXACTLY the same way about going to sleep…I often wish that 2-3 hours were sufficient to feel entirely rested! But then think of all the mischief the world would be up to if we only had to sleep one-eighth of the day…
You made me laugh so hard I almost woke up my 7 month old! I’m so relieved to know I’m not alone. My hubby sometimes has to go out of town so it just me and the chitlans. Well one night at about 2 am (I couldn’t sleep) something distracted me from my Food Network binge fest. I swore I heard something so I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a knife and went checking the rooms. My shadow looked like any killer from the slasher movies! I also have a tendency to believe in ghosts at 2am.
Oh I love making people laugh! It’s totally my favorite thing! =)
I dunno…some of these WD zombies can pick up a little bit of speed. What I want to know is how they manage to creep up on everybody in the woods with nary an audible twig snap. All I know is that Daryl Dixon better be waiting on that sweet bike of his to whisk me away to safety. Wait, what were we talking about? Oh yeah…zombies. 😉
I’d think if Aliens – yes I have though about it too- have technology to travel the galaxy, they would have better technology that would therefore negate probing. I am anti-probing. (Yearly gyno exam is enough)
That is so comforting! I’m going with that philosophy from now on!
i just moved into an old farm house that was built in 1880 and all the doors open and close on their own and of course everything cracks and settles at night… Well last night was my first night here totally alone with my cat. I was SURE there was an alien or crazy farmer outside my window, making me think the noises outside were just the cows… moooooo I’m coming to get you!!!