Memoirs of an Outstanding* Teen

Chapter 49: Invisible Forces

Around June, my days had already taken a destructive and shameful pattern.

From school, I would get dropped off at the petrol station by the school bus. I would go into the 24-hr Quick shop there, buy myself a 100g bar of chocolate, sometimes two bars, and some biscuits, then walk home.

At home, I would put my bag down on my study table, go get my lunch, a bowl of rice and beans, and a cup of coffee complete with several spoons of sugar and milk, and head back to my study table. I would eat my lunch and yes, it would always be a filling meal. I would be decently full afterwards and the coffee would wake me up just a little bit. Then I would proceed to eat the chocolates and biscuits while doing some math or physics problems.

I realize, in hindsight, that with less than three hours of sleep every day, I must have been working at a sloth's speed when I got to my desk. I imagine that's how people feel when they're high on some depressant drug. I must have had intervals where I would just stare at my book without reading or understanding anything, but I would think that I'm actually studying hard and being productive. I wouldn't doze off. I would just sit and stare, no need to die first to become a zombie.

Some thirty minutes later, after reading one paragraph of biology, or managing to read one of my physics problems, I would get up for another cup of coffee. I didn't have to hold back on the milk and sugar anymore. I would get another cup after thirty more minutes, and another one, and another one. Then on my fourth or fifth cup, I would get several slices of bread along with the coffee.

Some two hours later it would be dinner time, usually the same as whatever I had for lunch. And then the night would come. My mid-2014 nights were always very interesting.

Usually, I would move inside to study at the dining table because it would get too cold to study in my outside study room. Then around 11:00 or midnight, the trips would start. I would walk up to the fridge, sometimes with no prior decision-making process, no prior "should I eat something or not" thought process, and I would make a sandwich with whatever I find there, cheese, lentils, plain butter. Then some 30 or 45 minutes later, as if mechanically, I would get up, another sandwich. On some of my more conscious times, I would sit back down after standing up, tell myself this was no normal behavior, I should be ashamed of myself, that I ought to just drink my coffee and keep studying. Then suddenly it would be as if life itself stopped, as if I could not possibly do anything, not read another sentence, not write another word, not grasp any fact, not sleep, or do anything at all, unless I got up and made one more sandwich.

When I finally went to bed, around 2 or 3 o'clock, the guilt and shame would strike again, "What kind of Eat-All monster are you?" but I would console myself saying, "Things will all get back to normal after I write my finals, and it would all be worth it when after I get that top spot." (No, they won't and no it won't, Nelu).

I would wake up again, three hours later. Some coffee, some cereal. And off to school.

How I managed to look normal at school, I don't know. How my teachers and schoolmates did not scream at the sight of the 500 years of sleep missing from my face, I will never know.