She needed a drink and the caffeine roared in her body. So did the way the night sounded. And she thought in big, long streams. Like a handful of ropes that she kept lifting and lifting out of something, but couldnt find the ends of. And she couldn’t stop or sleep, but rolled back and forth in the bed and felt her heart in her chest and the drugs (not the caffeine) roaring. She was always tired. And the thought, like a man, rose at the foot of the bed, big, and strong, and clean. The thought of thirst and of rest and of stopping, and she heard somebody else turn in the night and she knew she wasn’t the only restless one, but just the beginning of something. Something big. And the night was happening all around her, but not for much longer. She’d been awake forever, and now she was actually worried about what might happen to her if she didn’t sleep. And that was the insomnia. She worried about waking him if she moved, but wanted a long, cold drink. Everything was strong. The sounds, the heat, the thirst. And she felt the breath in her sideways chest rising like a separate thing than her own self, her breath and her body were joined like a fault line, one lifted and at a separate angle from the other. And that’s when she thought the worst thought, the kind that only lives inside of sleeplessness. The death thought, and what if I’m dying. And that was when she finally moved, and went down the ladder to get a drink, but she worried about waking him and what would happen to her insides. And her shirt slipped on one shoulder and she wondered if his eyes had adjusted to the dark and if he could see her clearly and was she embarrassed? It was just her body, and a cold, separate feeling body at that. Her breath was like a plastic ring braced over the hole formed by her collarbone. She couldn’t remember the distance between laying down and the tiredness, after that. Her whole everything just went down all of a sudden, before she was aware of getting there, and it felt odd, like something wrong. And that was the insomnia. The fault line between physical exhaustion and mindfulness, the disjointed angle that was there, as well.
She didn’t like where the world was going. She wanted to go away from it. That’s what she was doing, anyway.
You know, you’re pretty lucky, he told her. He meant about being able to come here at all, to the woods. Even for a little.
Luck ain’t enough, she said back. And it was true.
