Four AM Breakdown

Somewhere it's 4 am. Chris reaches for the light and knocks the phone charging on the shelf above him onto his head, nearly taking out his eye. Technology will kill us all, one way or another. He flicks the lamp on and the bulb takes a minute to warm up. Suddenly his room is bathed in a cool blue fluorescent daylight. It's supposed to keep his SAD at bay but in the wee small hours of the morning he's looking to fend off the maelstrom in his head, the anxiety-making lists and concerns, plummeting his brain into a deep well of grief and anger, self doubt and relentless repetition. For months he's been in this cycle of sleep, insomnia, sleep, insomnia. In the early days he'd roll with it. Read, masturbate, make a sandwich. Maybe cereal, mug of tea. He would write, brief notes, trying to remember the anxiety dream that would run on an endless loop, thinking that naming it would end it. Then he thought maybe he was creating a deeper imprint, detailing the horror of it all, questioning it's origins, building a bible for the backstory. Eventually sleep would come, generally 45 minutes before the alarm. Work folk thought he'd been burning the candle at both ends, keeping some mysterious new project from them in secret and just waiting for the right time to knock their socks off. If only. Chris's reality was far less agreeable. He started to drink. That was useless; he'd pass out and wake up thick and slow, even more spent. Pot helped. Too much. Then late night strolls, lurking in shadows on wrought iron park benches in pre dawn dew, intermingling with the other world of underground life that hums and throbs, darting in and out of the shadows. When the rains came he had to move inside. Find some solace in his own bed, his own head. When the weight came off alarmingly fast, he knew he had to find some relief. Prescriptions made it worse. The first biopsy was inconclusive. Blood work, urine, CT, MRI, a brain scan. That was last week. Now he waits. And tries to stay out of his head for fear that what's in his head is killing him or at the least causing this overwhelming, undeniable sense that something is not right. It could be nothing, they tell him, but just in case, let's take a look, a poke, a prod, a picture. But don't fret, get some sleep. You'll feel better. And so it goes. Chris flicks off the light, the bulb glows ghost like in the dark, a remnant of clear sight.