Pale Clouds In The Relics Of Night

The time is exactly 1:50am on a very early (and cold) Thursday morning, and here I still sit, picking at my thoughts and tapping them out on the keyboard. There is no use in trying to sleep, I have taken four sleepers but the arm of Morpheus won't reach out for me quite yet. Daylight must be closer to the horizon for me to even attempt laying my head on a pillow.
All lights are off so only the computers background light is on, bathing my face in a hood of white whilst all around me is black like the very pit of misery. Spirits of the dead are no doubt hovering behind me, gentle veil eagles that do no harm. In fact they spur me on because without my iron faith that death is not an end I would be a sorry and broken man.
These hours are desolate, not a hint of warmth or comfort, and as I am fond of saying, illness and mortality seem more inevitable now than at any other time of day. I feel it now; weak, morbid, slightly anxious and certain death will meet me in my next footstep. The twilight hours, when the sun is gone and sly things creep about in hedgegrows, are truly the dungeons of time. Dank little places where if rest comes hard one is doomed to stay, dragging every minute as if it were a month.
I glance down at the digital clock on the corner of the screen, 2:10am. An hour later I look again, 2:21am it reads. Almost smugly as if it knows I despise sober nights, when seconds are pulled by giant whales and submarines. Clocks have never been of any use to me, indeed they irritate to the chore. Trying to order my life, settle me down into routine when I demand none of it. I thrive in chaos and want to lead as disorderly life as I can before folding my arms and heading to the grave.
The blackness on the other side of the window is utterly pitch, as if a coal skinned demon was pressing his mighty gut againt the glass. No sane man, woman or beast should be conscious, but I sit like a leper cast out from the coma village while the clean people gather in their dreams for buttery scones and weird tasting tea.
Time is in syrup, lolligagging on a lazy shift. I could almost imagine being a condemned man on death row, living out his last night on earth but of course the wretched inmate will have his sleep when morning arrives (albeit a permanant one), whereas I will still have a struggle. Sleep comes hard for me because in order to sleep easily one must abandon thoughts and ideas, never an easy task to fidgety, creative types.
One of the reasons I drink so heavily is because alcohol is a fine blanket to smother the flame in my mind. Otherwise I would be forever spitting ideas into a notepad, shaping rhyme and stanzas. I need, as other wordy people have seemed to need also, a 'Switch Off' for my brain and gin does a splendid job. (Or any drink that numbs the senses). But nothing stronger than water has passed these lips today so here I sit, cladded inbetween cold and dark.
Would a film pass the time I wonder? On second thoughts no, it is now past 3am and the only thing to do is watch the clock and listen to excited American voices coming from computer speakers. I am not really listening though, it just makes a refreshing change than hearing my gloomy reports; 'Im dying! There's nothing outside but devils in the bushes! Not long now and i'll be dead for sure! Its cold!'
My whiny predictions could put merry sunshine into fits of depression, I have a knack for gothic overtures. It isn't an act or facade that I wear for attention, it is just me. I don't suit rays of light as petals of summer drop from my shoulders, it is much too fragile for my bulk. I am not a fairground carousel, dolling out happiness; I am the ghost train taking the innocent into shadows to corrupt or seduce.
I can feel my brow sag under a wave of tiredness but its fake, a rotten illusion to try and tempt me under the duvet. I know from bitter experience that should I retire and climb into bed, a weight would fall upon my chest forcing me to toss and turn, twitch like a pinball. Sure my eyelids are getting heavier with every stroke of time but I won't be fooled by them, I will sit here, softly stroking my liver through my skin and listen for poltergeists on the stairs.
Its in these hours that I believe prayer would be most heard. The pathetic televisions are dead, roads are idle and babes are safely in their cots so its peaceful, perfect conditions for a chat with the the Almighty. Rubbish of course because if God exists then He can hear above the honking of car horns and nonsense of television.
My mind is racing like a fly in a sardine tin; from dying and sleep to food and how fearsome my beard is looking. Eyes glued to the letters on the screen, sometimes glancing toward the stopped clock and at other times resting on the figures I have standing to attention next to the computer. Precious childhood toys that due to a small fires glow, sometimes appear to be alive as a orange light flickers across their plastic bodies.
I almost wish they were alive, they might have interesting conversation topics. One struggles to find anything of interest in the hours before dawn when the night air has most people gripped in its dream stained cotton fist, never to stir much before six. Its only poets, vagabonds, hoodlums and cats that are alert now as the time crawls up to 5am. Surely nothing disciplined is awake.
I feel drained, drunk without the euphoria. Hungover but dry. I feel sleep is closer now yet I am not looking forward to surrendering to my bed as I suppose normal people feel. Eventhough weariness is beginning to hang from my muscles like wet dish cloths I feel no relief that rest is near.
11:30am and so it proved true. I took my bloated carcass to the thorny nest as it just pipped 5:21am and for some moments lay in the inky light which had no intention of getting brighter at that ungodly hour. I picked up a book and read some paragraphs, hooks of sleep reeling me in on every word, but accompanying each tranquil rivulet were flashes of craziness whenever I shut my eyes.
Freaks hollered and twisted shapes ran amok throughout my mind; bug eyed, dagger nosed wolves eating their own arms, giant headed ants racing across bloodied sands hunting for God knows what but my heart went out for it. Swirls of nausea gripped my brain, fuelling a circus of odd characters and bizarre scenes which would flash ON and OFF over and over in my head. There is never any real fear from these violent palettes of colour but its a miserable way to drift into the shroud of dreams.
Combine those fevered pictures with a heavy heart and biting cold and its a wonder I did succumb to the gentle stabs of sleep but sleep I did. The horror finally gave way to soft pastures where furry things with happy eyes roamed and blood was warm from wine, not dripping from walls or blades. And I surrendered to it, leaving my stubbled cheeks to fend off the chill on their own.