100 People in 100 Days:ix. Richard Sebastion

It had been six years since his last spell of insomnia. But now it had returned. His eyeballs felt as if they were about to pop out; the skin around them feeling tight and as if it was being pulled tighter and tighter every second. He hunched over on the edge of his band, arms folded holding each other, as he tried to keep them from shaking. Then his scalp started itched. He ran his fingers through his hair as if trying to scratch his entire head at once. Not being able to get rid of the itch, he started shaking his had violently trying to regain some kind of feeling that he recognized instead of what he figured was happening—his slow and imminent decomposition.

This was Richard Sebastian slowly loosing it again.

He sat in the dark bedroom, staring out the wall though in the darkness he could not see said wall. He wanted to cry. But nothing would come. No tears, no sobs, no goddamned nothing, why can’t I just cry and fall asleep. Richard curled his hands into fist and began hitting himself in the head. “Cry motherfucker cry. Why don’t you do anything. Get it out, just get it out.” Then, not being able to cry, he curled up into a fetal position on the bed and gently rocked back and forth.

For six years Richard had maintained a fairly happy disposition. Through three years of prescription drugs and therapy he had overcome years of clinical depression. The thought of suicide stopped appearing in his mind as a solution. He was able to go outside and talk to complete strangers. He was able to sleep.

And now he could not.

Richard continue to gently rock back and forth in the fetal position. Sleep, sleep, sleep. sleep. I need to sleep. I have to wake up in two hours for work. I need sleep before work. I can’t go to work with another night of no sleep. Sleep. Sleep. “Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep,” Richard continued to repeat to himself until the word sleep no longer seemed like a word, “Please, please sleep. Why can’t I do this right.” His eyes felt dry as he could not cry.

Richard sat up on his knees. “God, damn you, I can’t handle going back to this. I liked being happy. I don’t want to be how I was. Please. I won’t be able to handle it again.” Then he knelt there in silence. “God.” “Please.”

“I can’t do this again.” He waited in the silence again.

“I like being happy. I know I used to think happy people were idiots that didn’t understand the reality of life. But not anymore, God. Please, I liked being happy. I liked not being scared all the time.” Richard gulped and knelt in the silence, rocking back and forth.

Then he lifted up the comforter on his bed and wrapped himself up as a mummy in it and laid down in his bed. He closed his eyes. He listened to himself breathe. His breath was heavy. Richard felt mucus run down from his nose onto the pillow. He used all his strength to close the tightened skin around his eyes, but his eyes hurt even when he was able to shut his lids. He thought about all the tears that he wish he could cry. He thought about all the people he wished he could stomp to a bloody pulp for causing him stress and worry. He thought about the days when he did not have to think at all to fall asleep. Then he fell asleep; and awoke forty-five minutes later when the alarm clock rang.