On a hot summer night

Last night I couldn’t get to sleep at all, to coin a phrase. It is summer, course, and this is what summer is about: not sleeping because it’s just too hot–the bed is hot, the room is stifling, and no matter what posture you adopt, it is uncomfortable. Your neck is sweaty and sticky. Your head pounds just enough to keep you awake. You roll onto your side, trying to find that perfect posture that will bring sleep. Nothing. The minutes tick by. Maybe you should get up and read for a bit? Maybe a cold shower? Maybe you should eat something? You ponder all of this and all of a sudden you realize you have been in bed for an hour and you are still awake. The summer insomnia of a hot July night has you in its grasp, and you are helpless to escape. Once you realize what is going on, you not only can’t get to sleep, you now know that you can’t get to sleep. You have become self-aware of the problem, and sleep has sailed away into the night, leaving you on the shore of consciousness with no hope of getting off of that beach anytime soon. You obsess with being awake, which, of course, just aggravates the situation. In the meantime, morning is getting closer and closer, the night is still hot and humid, and now you are the only one still awake except for a few night creatures who wake up after dark. The garbage truck comes by. A few partiers are finally returning home after a long night debauchery and dissidence. You should be asleep. You should be doing your best simulacra of death, but you can’t, and you catch of glimpse of Phoebus nudging up to the horizon.