INSOMNIAC
By Orcusmars

My problem is I can’t sleep. Actually, my problem is my girlfriend, but I’ll go into that later. My head is empty, save for the headaches, as well as the knowledge that if I go to sleep, I will incur a hangover like this world has never seen. I think about this as I stare at the blank page before me. It’s ironic that ever since my wildest dreams came true, I stopped dreaming altogether.
I get another headache, and make my way to the medicine cabinet. It’s locked. I can’t find the damn key. Keeping my girlfriend away from any sort of pill-popping is a full-time job, and a damned inconvenience at that. I look at the clock. It’s 3 AM, and I still have to crank out a story by tomorrow at noon. Rather, today at noon. Eventually I locate the key, hiding on top of the cabinet where my girlfriend can’t reach it. I open the mirror to find 3 dozen medications. I grab two aspirin, and gulp them down with sink water, the liquid equivalent to swallowing a rock.
I look at my face in the mirror. I’ve got permanent bags under my eyes, now. My girlfriend says they make me look more grown-up. That’s understandable, but coming from a pill-popper, this observation is of little comfort.
Though I can’t for the life of me remember her name right now, at any other time I’d call her Stacie. She’s short, skinny, and red-headed. Her interests are me, her cat, and fleeting flirtations with drugs whose names won’t even show up on a Google search. She’s sleeping in my bed right now, and the irony is not lost on me. Perhaps I’d better step back a little.
My name isn’t important. I’m a writer living in downtown L.A. with a serious case of writer’s block, and bills to pay. I also have a girlfriend.
We’re in love, or at least that’s what she tells me as she drinks the last beer in my fridge. She makes a face, as if to tell me that even though she completely dried up my supply of alcohol, she didn’t like it. I make a face back, and not two minutes later we’re waking up the neighbors with the rhythmic squeaking of a spring bed, accompanied by the obligatory screams and moans of pleasure that generally accompany such acts. I always wonder what they must be thinking, my neighbors.
As we finish up our nightly or even bi- or tri-nightly sex addiction, I think about when I used to dream about having this sort of relationship. Now I don’t dream. Mainly because I don’t sleep, but also because I’m too afraid of the next dream that might come true. She curls up next to me in bed, and, in traditional fashion, steals all the sheets, lost in a sleep to deep to disturb.
I’ve stopped focusing on the sex. Stacie is in a constant state of uncanny, unspeakable sexual desire. For the first few months, this is a godsend, but after a while, your mind wanders. You wonder idly how the hell she manages to stave off pregnancy. You start to notice things about them they always wanted you to notice, like their eyes, their smile, and the color of the wallpaper. Idle wonderings give way to emotional separation from the act, and soon, utter apathy.
I met her at an AA meeting. My nametag read “Bruce,” but that’s not my real name. Stacie still calls me that. Sometimes I’m not even sure if she knows my real name. I prefer it that way. Bruce sounds better.
She didn’t drink. She came to the meeting with her alcoholic friend, who committed suicide three months later. I was at the funeral. It was then that she told me she was moving in. I wasn’t really surprised. She practically lived at my place already, so accommodations weren’t too difficult to make.
I think I’m immune to medicine. This is what I’m thinking as I am once again staring at a blank page. Many say an empty page is full of possibilities. To me, this is like saying a glass is full of air. Sure, it’s true, but it doesn’t matter. I want water, not air. I want words, not possibilities.
I look at the clock again. It’s 6 a.m. It’s been a solid week since I’ve actually slept. I have some sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet, but they don’t work. I guess I really am immune to medicine. I look at Stacie, who’s still sleeping in my bed. She was my dream girl, and now she dreams for me. The irony isn’t lost on me. I could write you a novel about the ironies in my life. It just so happens that the biggest irony in my life thinks that irony is a kind of metal.
Metal… don’t get me started on metal. Ever since Stacie moved in, the apartment has been a veritable pit of noise. She calls it music. I call it cacophony. She listens to bands like Bloodbath, Cannibal Corpse, and Cattle Decapitation. I listen to them, too, but not out of choice. I wade through oceans of CD cases whose album art could disturb even the dullest of senses. I need a beer. My mind is empty, like some sort of twisted enlightenment. Like the fridge when I open it to find it bereft of alcohol. Or food. My fridge is like me. Enlightened, but at least my fridge doesn’t get the headaches.
It’s times like these when my complex thought process brings me to drink. If you’re pondering about the eternal soul of your kitchenware, kick back a bottle of Jack. Whiskey, if it’s the furniture. Vodka if it’s the cat.
When you start talking to any of the above, you’ve had enough, and it’s time to start writing again. I sit at my desk again. The paper is still there, but the figure that was in bed is gone. I have no time to think, only enough to sigh as her arms drape over my chest. I can feel her slight breasts through my old Rolling Stones t-shirt, and somehow I resent her for this.
“I’m awake, honey. Were you up all night again?” she asks dreamily. Her voice is merely a purr, matching the pounding of my insistent headache.
I tell her yes, and she holds me tighter. There is a seductive nature to her sleepiness, her messy hair and slow, measured breathing.
“But you haven’t written anything,” she says, giggling. Her body closes around mine, less clinging than drowsily hanging upon me.
I tell her I don’t know what to write about. She leans her head over my shoulder, looking me in the eyes.
“Why don’t you write about me?” she asks, running her finger down my chest. She gives me her million-dollar smile.
I sit, dumbfounded. I look at the clock again. 7:30. I have four hours to write something readable. I look into Stacie’s big, blue eyes, and for the first time in a long time, I smile.
That’s a great idea, honey, I say. She gives me a drowsy laugh.
“You called me honey. I haven’t heard you call me that for a long time, Brucie,” she says. “I’ve gotta take a shower.” She gets up, winking as she lifts up the hem of the shirt only enough for me to catch a glimpse of the figure beneath. “Care to join me?” she says, her big, soft lips forming a sly grin.
A shower sounds nice. This is what I’m thinking of as I am staring at a blank page. It’s 7:31, and there is a lethally beautiful woman in my shower. A part of me wants to get this project done before the deadline, but another part of me sees the promise in this blank page, and is perfectly content in leaving it the way it is; full of possibilities.