Horrors of Insomnia

I used to have wild, inappropriate and ultimately disturbing fantasies about being alone in a post-apocalyptic world where I could run around grabbing stuff off mall shelves and sleeping in 5-star hotels. However, when you have to get up early the next day, and you're still lying awake after 3 hours in bed, you'd regret ever thinking so foolishly.

You'd wonder how nice it would be to have someone by your side to talk to. You'd feel you need a conversation, a bit of a chat to stop that ringing in your ears. You'd fight the temptation to wake all your friends with a false alarm ring. You'd struggle to keep yourself from calling any random person just to hear a human voice. A human voice. The soft, assuring, calming tones of a human voice. That's all you'd need.

Then you'd start to talk to yourself, alternating between scolding and re-assuring yourself. You'd switch the lights on and off, just to amuse yourself with the shiny, flickering glow. After that, you'd make repetitive trips to the toilet, convinced each time that you haven't rinsed your bladder dry enough, when in actuality, you just like the sound of the water flushing. The phone would look really tempting now. So would the sleeping pills. Finally you'd grab a sleep-inducing flu medicine pill and, convincing yourself that you wouldn't get addicted to it, slowly drop off to sleep.

As the years go by, insomnia has painfully taught me something. Humans are sociable creatures and we'd die of madness if left without any company.