The Passage

For most people there’s a narrow corridor between wakefulness and sleep that they drift through quickly. For me it’s a cavern. A place where I am neither awake nor asleep, a quasi-dream state where only nightmares are a reality and peace of mind is fleeting. This place where corridors expand through time and space, and which changes with each experience such that finding the right path to blissful rest is a journey. Some nights as I lay there searching for the path it appears quickly, unexpectedly and I think maybe I’ve found the answer; maybe I’ll be able to follow this path again and be satisfied. It doesn’t take long for reality to set in when my next journey takes days, although in reality it is merely a matter of hours. However, in the dark of night hours stretch on endlessly, for only blackness exists in its natural form. We ignore that blackness through human ingenuity: fire, electricity, and light, sight at a moment’s notice regardless of the hour or depth of night. Our senses are no longer limited by the natural order of things. During this time I find there are moments of clarity, which I imagine are similar to the addict who meets the climax, the epitome of contentment, right after satisfying his cravings; where everything is right with the world. More often things are clouded, obscure. Images flash before my eyes, thoughts and ideas come into my mind only to be torn away the moment their brilliance is realized. Patience means nothing; exhaustion means nothing, because it leads nowhere. Not until days pass and the fatigue compounds until the physical limits of my body are reached and the natural order of things must be satisfied through rest, albeit not always peaceful. In the end it all leads to one thing, an expanding cavern containing an endless nightmare which I am forced experience night after night…insomnia.