A Case of Insomnia
He didn’t think going outside the house mattered anymore.
Nothing excited him. Nothing made him smile. Nothing made him sad.
He didn’t feel the need to engage in social activity. He no longer wished to be a part of the outside world for the world had nothing to offer him and he had nothing to offer the world. He felt like a hollow body carrying out the routine activities of a 32-year old accountant who spent his weekdays at work and weekends in bed.
It didn’t help that the people close to him noticed these changing patterns of behavior. It was almost as if he was suddenly turned into glass in their eyes and they treated him with such care and gentleness that he started believing himself to be quite that fragile. But try as he might, he could not feel emotionally strengthened by their efforts to fill the void in his mind. Or heart. Or body. (He couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of the void anyhow).
Instead, he remained unaffected and carried out his days as he had been for the past few months and as a result, many of his friends and family had simply given up.
The day he felt the most alive since this hollowness began and his loved ones turned their backs was a day that was as uneventful as ever.
He woke up at 12:21 pm, ate something akin to breakfast (which was the only anomaly of that particular day), and promptly went back to bed. Except that when his head hit the pillow he was surprised to find himself ‘feeling’ something for the first time in months: discomfort.
He turned sides, flipped the pillow, adjusted the blanket, stuck one foot out (only to immediately pull it back in) and even tried lying on his stomach. But the discomfort wouldn’t go away. It lingered and hovered and settled in the pit of his stomach. Every time he thought about it his heart felt a little heavy and he couldn’t breathe and before he realized, he was no longer in bed but getting dressed and rushing out the door.
He walked for miles and miles and couldn’t remember a single second of the journey until he finally stopped outside the fence of a local park.
The first thing to catch his attention was the stark contrast of the trees to the sky. Unlike the grey clouds looming above him, the trees that stood beneath were bright, warm, and welcoming.
They allowed him to relax and gather his thoughts.
It took him away from the gloom and doom of the otherwise rainy day and brought him back to something more familiar, something that screamed contentness and freedom.
And for reasons unknown to him, when he returned to his home, he felt considerably lighter. In fact, he felt comfortable for the first time since that morning and everytime he pondered the reason, all he could see were bright yellow flashes of the proud trees back at the park.
He couldn’t help but wonder if it symbolized something more and whether it was his saving grace from the panic that chased him that day.
The End
