Nocturnal

Chapter Three: Only This and Nothing More

You know that feeling you get after holding your breath for half a minute? Even just fifteen seconds will do trick, the sudden release of the built up pressure in your body cause immense relaxation of your muscles and a slight release of dopamine. This is the feeling I get when I wake up sometimes, like I've been holding my breath and when I open my eyes I let it out. To say the least it's a very nice feeling, but it's weird, because I know I shouldn't wake up with a cold sweat and heart thats beating three times as fast as it should be. Okay maybe not three times as fast but it sure feels like it, but either way it's complete bliss to wake up like that. I remember several occasions first starting out with the missing dreams, but it still persisted as months an years went by. The first morning waking up was ironically the most memorable, because I was remembering the feeling after not remembering anything.

I walked down the hall, stopping by my mother's room to see her laying face down in her bed, sleeping like a baby. I hardly ever saw her asleep, and its was comforting to know she was doing better. Even if it was only for the moment. Even though I felt better than most mornings I still didn't eat, instead painfully chugging a bitter mug of dark roast black coffee. Food in the mornings made me feel groggier than usual, and gave me a slow, sluggish feeling.

Of course like any normal day I sat on the sidewalk and waited for the bus to come by the corner of 5TH and Walker St at 7:30 am every morning. When the bus got there I was the first stop as I always was, nodding to the bus driver like every other day and walking to the back of the bus to sit in the temporary grounds of solitude. When the other kids got on the bus I put in my earbuds and turned on whatever music I happened to feel like listening to. That day it was Nine Inch Nails.

"Hey what's up T?" I saw Ivin mouth, smiling that big smile as usual. He thought he was everybody's friend, but he was only just acquaintances with 90% of the high school. I waved and closed my eyes, resting my head against the back of the bus, thankful for my means of blocking out the rest of the world around me.
I felt the familiar feeling of consciousness leaving my body, my muscles releasing the slight tension from the cold morning air.
I let myself sink further into the seat, the leather worn and soft from years of energetic youth squirming in impatience for the ride to be over.
The tilts and bumps of the bus melted away into the soft comfort of sleep,
as I faded into a cool well welcomed slumber.

I woke with a start, making an unbecoming grunt, as I hit the back of my head against the metal wall of the bus, my earbuds falling down to the seat.
"Tired much?"
I heard the voice next to me and I jerked my head to the right to see John, my first and only friend since I started high school that I had met after I first sang in choir.

"I didn't notice you were sitting there"
I said, rubbing my eyes to clear the fogginess in my vision, winding the earbuds over my Ipod

"Yeah I've been on here for ten minutes already," he said yawning, "how much sleep did you get last night man?"

"The usual, five or six hours or so, I keep waking up all the time," I answered, letting my head fall back to the wall again.

"Damn that's gotta be annoying."

"I've gotten used to it, I'm gonna pick up some caffeine pills during lunch period anyway."

Even though I'd gotten used to it, it still really took away a lot from my daily life. I didn't really eat much except for a small dinner and the occasional snack every now and then.
It's not that we were poor or that I was anorexic, but I just really didn't have much of an appetite. But I knew I had to eat so I did it anyway.

As the time passed I watched the other kids get on the bus and grew tired again, the rhythm of my breath in time with my heartbeat acted almost as a hypnotic lullaby and I found myself drifting closer to the abyss of my mind. My eyes closed and acknowledgment of where I was slipped away from me as I fell further into my slumber.

I have a proposal to make...

I jolted awake again and looked out of the windows of the bus to see the familiar red brick walls of the school approaching. As usual there was a collective shudder of groans and sighs as the students knew their well awaited fate was drawing near just like every other day, but somehow they had still not gotten used to it.

I suppose it was hard to like that school in the least little bit possible. The staff didn't care about their jobs one little bit, you could be given detention or a tardy slip just for being late, (depending on how much the teacher hated their lives on that particular day) the lunches were almost inedible, and the bathrooms made gas station restrooms look like the Queen of England's washroom.

Either way I only had about two more years left. All I had to do was keep my sanity going for a little bit longer until I could go off and do my own thing. I looked out the window closest to me and watched the pavement go by, trying to remember my miniature dream. My eyes drifted up to the sidewalk, the grey concrete sparking something in my mind, a memory stirring in the back of my head.
I let my eyes wander up the sidewalk to the school now only fifty feet away now.
I reached down and grabbed my backpack off the bus floor, standing up when the bus finally came to a halt at the school.
I shuffled out of the bus with the rest of the kids and looked back to the sidewalk, trying to bring up the memory, until finally the same familiar feeling came back and I for a moment imagined something rather random to say the least.
A man in a grey suit, a brown wooden cane and brown shoes, tall and ghostly, like a living gravestone. I was pushed forward a few feet by surprisingly energetic kids bumping into me, and I almost lost my footing. I looked back and for a moment I could've sworn I saw the tall man, standing in the crowd of kids, staring straight at me, but then more kids got in front of my imagination and the image was gone again.
When the kids moved I looked again but nothing was there, and I new I was just tired, imagining things.
Only that and nothing more.