Drifting on waves towards a solid shore of wakefulness in the early evening, after having let the sleep currents pull me out into the vast open a couple hours prior (read: a nap). Sometimes it is possible to postpone the inevitable waking, just by adjusting oneself into a new arrangement and subsequently sighing for the effort it required, thereby diving deeper into slumber instead of piercing the surface of the glue pool. For instance, moving from prone position to the side, or removing the pillow from under one’s head.
It was not to be on this occasion; I could already hear the traffic bleeding through my window, and I was hungry. It was time for the family reunions taking place on the division of eyelids to come to an end. Microorganism mothers asking their children if they were coming home or spending the day on the other hemisphere with the relatives. “The REM tremors have subsided my dears, he’ll be waking shortly! Please choose on which half of eyelid you want to remain until he next sleeps. As you know, you’ll be feasting on a dinner of dead skin cells no matter your location, but if you prefer them with salt you should stay here on the southern half where his sweat accumulates.”
Some of the toddlers were late in choosing sides. I could hear their screams as I broke the seal and they plummeted down the crevasse, finally meeting their demise on my sticky eyeball, where microorganisms of another kind must’ve devoured them alive.
A black speck of something on my off-white sheet greeted me as I looked out with blurred vision through timidly opened slits. A few blinks to set things right, to recalibrate the 25 year old machine, a routine maintenance job. Back to work, wipe the windows, reestablish communication with the visual input headquarters in the neocortex.
The black speck remained. What are you? I wonder, staring. And then, are you moving? Oh god, I have bed bugs. The fear pulls me once and for all out of my drowsy state and motivates limb movement. With surprising swiftness and dexterity my hand pounces on the thing and I pinch it between my pointer finger and thumb. False alarm, only a piece of lint.
There had been the illusion of movement, of that I’m sure. Why should the eyes and mind conspire to generate such a sight? Maybe too many mushrooms. No, there is never too much psilocybin.