Insomniac

Prologue

I couldn’t sleep one night. For a month.

I tried everything. Dull books, warm milk, taking a census of the sheep population—to no avail. I’d lay in bed like an expectant lover but sleep jilted me every time. 

After the thirtieth restless night, I went to my doctor. 

“Do you have trouble falling asleep? Do you have trouble staying asleep? Are you waking up too early?”

I answered “yes” to every question on his checklist then said, “Can you give me some of the good stuff?”

Dr. Mohammed lifted an eyebrow then set it down gently. 

“You mean drugs?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

I rattled off a list of the sleep aids I’d seen advertised on late-night television. They all had the same angelic-sounding names children would give to their pet unicorns though you’d probably die if you took one pill too many. 

Dr. Mohammed shook his head. “I’d like to run some tests first.”

I was afraid he’d say that. 

I passed out during the blood test. When I opened my eyes, the woman who’d wielded the needle was hovering over me. 

“Are you alright?” she asked. 

“Best sleep I’ve had in days,” I said. 

She laughed. But I was serious.

“There’s nothing unusual in your bloodwork,” my doctor told me a week later. 

I started to pick out names for my pet unicorn.

Dr. Mohammed frowned. “I’ll send you for one more test first. This one takes about eight hours.”

I laughed. But he was serious. 

---

I sat in a hospital gown on the edge of the bed until a woman came into the room. When I finished yawning, she introduced herself. 

“I’m a sleep technologist,” she said. “A polysomnographer.” 

“Can I call you Poly?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she pointed to a blinking machine by the bed. 

“This is FRED,” she said. “FRED will record your heart rate, breathing and body movements.” She pulled electrodes out of FRED like spider silk, stuck them to my arms/legs/forehead and said, “Have a nice sleep.”

“But I can’t sleep,” I said.

The polysomnographer looked at me skeptically. 

“If you need anything, press the button on the wall here. Do you have any questions?”

I should’ve asked her what FRED stands for because the second she dimmed the lights and left the room I started to wonder. 

For Researching Extreme Drowsiness.

Feverishly Recording Every Dreamer.

Friendly Robot … Eats … Damn. 

It doesn’t take much to get an insomniac going. I once lost half a night’s sleep trying to remember the name of my best-friend-in-second-grade’s Pomeranian. It was Marshmallow but even that 3:00 am epiphany didn’t bring on sleep. Then I started debating the dog’s eye color. 

Former (Repurposed) Enema Device.

I could’ve used a gin and tonic, but I didn’t press the button. I stared at the ceiling. The walls. At FRED.

Fancy Rest? Embrace Death!

I watched the wounded hours drag themselves from one side of the room to the other until someone knocked softly and opened the door. 

It was Poly.

Looking up from her clipboard: “You didn’t sleep at all,” she said.

“That’s just the problem,” I said. And before I could forget: “What does FRED stand for?”

The polysomnographer blinked. 

“It doesn’t stand for anything,” she said. “Actually, it’s the name of my dog.”

I didn’t ask her what color the dog’s eyes were. Because she’d already left the room. 

---

Dr. Mohammed arranged a frown, closed my folder. 

“You’re suffering from severe insomnia,” he said. A minute later, he slipped into a foreign tongue: “Ambian, Somnol, Lunesta…”

I picked the drowsiest-sounding drug (naming pharmaceuticals is one of the last remaining paying gigs for poets), filled the prescription, staggered home. 

That night, I swallowed a pill … and slept beautifully. 

I slept well the next night but woke with a haunting melody in my head. 

On the third evening, I had a vivid nightmare that I was a passenger on a carousel. It turned faster and faster until the fiberglass animals broke free from their supports and tore after bystanders, biting them. 

I’m not sure if I was riding a unicorn, but I probably was. 

The dream repeated itself the next several nights and when I started to flinch at the sight of anything that rotated, Dr. Mohammed switched me to a new drug that caused me to sleep-write censorious letters to myself. I’d wake up exhausted with a cramped hand and a dozen pages scattered over the bed. After a few weeks, I realized I couldn’t go on like this; my right hand was in agony, and many of the criticisms were spot-on. So I flushed the pills down the toilet—and went back to Mohammed. 

“Do you have anything without horrifying side effects?” I asked him.

Dr. Mohammed thought for a minute. He was still thinking when I said, “Nevermind.” And walked out of his office. 

---

In lieu of sleeping one night, I quietly read billboards. As I walked aimlessly downtown. 

Though I could’ve gone for a FLAMING-HOT VOLCANO BURGER or even a PAINLESS HAIR TRANSPLANT, it was the plain white billboard that caught my attention.

HEALTH QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS? CALL THE 24-HOUR HOSPITAL HOTLINE.

I dialled the ten-foot-long number and waited.  

The line rang a dozen times before a throaty voice said, “Hello.”

“I have a question about insomnia,” I said.

“Are you having trouble sleeping?” asked the voice.

“It’s four in the morning,” I said.

There was a long silence. 

“What was your question?”

“Well … do you have any tips? About how to fall asleep?” I made a grim recitation of everything I’d attempted. The doctor’s visits, the drugs. 

Another long silence. 

“Have you considered warm milk?” asked the voice, at last. 

I sighed. I was about to hang up when the voice said, “You’ve heard of Sleep Group?”

Sleep Group wasn’t, the voice clarified, a couple dozen pyjama-clad adults cuddled up on a floor mat. No, it was a support group for poor sleepers that met every Tuesday night at nine in the basement of the hospital. 

“I can register you right now, if you like.”

Though I’d almost rather be euthanized than talk in front of an unknown group of people, I hastily said “Yes.” 

I was desperate. 

---

“I’m an insomniac,” I said, not sure how to begin. 

All the name-tagged, bleary-eyed people in Room 23B looked up at me. 

“We don’t like to use that term,” said Stella, the Sleep Group moderator. “We prefer ‘person experiencing insomnia.’” 

“Just because you’re experiencing insomnia now,” said an exceptionally elderly woman to my left, “doesn’t mean you’ll be experiencing it forever.”

“You can’t let insomnia control you,” said the man across from me, yawning.  

I yawned too—and tried again.

“I’m … a person experiencing insomnia.”

The other persons experiencing insomnia clapped drowsily.  

“Why don’t you tell us what that feels like?” asked Stella.

I thought for a minute. 

“If sleep ends the day, but you don’t sleep… It’s like you’re walking home from work, and you can see home, but no matter how long you drag your feet, you never get there.”

There was a smattering of applause. No one said anything, so I continued. 

“It’s like you’ve been sentenced to read an infinitely long novel without stopping. Every time you turn a page, there’s another one.” 

A single clap. 

“It’s like you’re a vampire and the last person on earth. You’re so bloodthirsty you could die … but you’re already dead.” 

The room was silent. 

Someone coughed. 

Stella looked around. 

“Does anyone else have something to say?” she asked. 

No one did. 

“Thank-you for sharing,” she said. 

The same person coughed.

The man across from me yawned.

So did I. 

---

I went to Sleep Group a few more times but talking to strangers wasn’t as soporific as I’d hoped. So I tried talking to my friend Jennifer. We went for a walk in the park one night.

“You’re fucked,” she said.

I’d suspected as much.

“Sleep-fucked. I used to be sleep-fucked, too. Terrible insomnia.”

“What did you do?” I asked. 

My friend lifted her head proudly. 

“I un-fucked myself,” she said. A passing octogenarian grimaced as she continued: “The key is to identify your sleep-fuckers. I have three kids, two beagles and a husband, so it was easy. You have to come up with an antidote for each of them. A glass of cab sav cancels out my husband. Even constant barking is no match for a good book. By the time I finish my bath, I’ve forgotten my children existed—and I’m ready for sleep.” She let out a long sigh. “A glass of wine … a novel … a nice, long bath. That un-fucks me beautifully.” 

We spent the rest of the walk trying to come up with my sleep-fuckers but I shook my head at everything my friend suggested.

Jennifer shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t get it. No marriage, no mortgage, no kids. How are you even conscious?”

“I’m barely conscious.”

Jennifer shook her head. That just wasn’t good enough. “Well, I’d give the wine/book/bath thing a try, anyway. You never know.”

We finished our circuit around the park, waved goodbye to each other.  

“Go un-fuck yourself!” Jennifer yelled over her shoulder. Another old woman grimaced. 

That night, I had a long bath, read a short book and doused myself with reasonably priced wine. 

It was relaxing. 

Around midnight, I yawned, crawled into bed … and lay awake all night. 

I was still fucked. 

I’d suspected as much. 

---

It was too early to stare at the ceiling, so I handed a sinister-looking man some cash and stepped through the gates of The X—the city’s annual summer carnival. 

When you’ve been awake for over twenty-four hours, you start to feel like a dream person and even everyday activities—like eating an obscenely-long hotdog or waving back to a clown–can feel surreal. 

I finished the hotdog and swallowed popcorn as I walked through the crowded midway. Without realizing it, I found myself in the lineup for the Ferris wheel. By the time I reached the front of the queue, I’d eaten the whole bag of little donuts. 

“Not a chance in hell you’d get me on that thing,” said a man in a cowboy hat, passing by. “These rides are all put together by teenagers.”

“Yes, but they’re professional teenagers,” said a woman, reassuringly.

The man didn’t look reassured. I probably didn’t either as I stepped into a saucer-shaped compartment and began my ascent. 

The wheel made one full rotation and was halfway though a second when it stopped abruptly, leaving my saucer rocking back and forth at the summit. I wondered if the ride was over—or if it had broken down. 

Ten minutes later, I was still wondering. I looked around…

From that height, I had a gorgeous view of a boy throwing up. With the amount I’d eaten, I sympathized. Then I heard soft laughter and wondered if the producer of that laughter was wearing a cowboy hat. 

With the junk food, the boredom, the swaying of the saucer, my eyes started to take on weight. So I closed them. 

I must have nodded off because the next thing I knew I was being shaken awake by someone. A professional teenager.  

“Sorry it took so long, bro,” he said. “It’s all fixed now.”

I blinked confusedly—and looked around. My saucer was hovering just above ground level. 

“How long was I up there?” I asked.

“Dunno. An hour?”

An hour. I’d slept for an hour. 

It was a miracle. 

I was ecstatic. I could’ve flung open shutters, bought a Christmas goose for a needy Victorian family. Instead, I laughed. And laughed. 

The professional teenager smiled nervously—and handed me a coupon for a free hotdog. 

As I walked my hotdog, I found myself in the Ferris wheel lineup again. 

This time, on purpose. 

Epilogue

I don’t know whether it was the chemicals in the food or they hypnotic action of the Ferris wheel, but after the carnival, my insomnia waned a little every day. When a full night’s sleep finally appeared on the horizon… I felt like Marco Polo.

Dr. Mohammed was ecstatic. So was Jennifer. “You un-fucked yourself,” she said on our next walk, slapping me on the back. “Un-fucking believable.” 

I still have my restless nights but when they strike, I don’t bother with warm milk or ovine arithmetic. Instead, I picture a Ferris wheel … a mountain of hotdogs … a professional teenager scratching his pimples. And I’m bound to fall asleep eventually.