Sincerely, S.H

Chapter 6

Sleep comes easily, thankfully. Even better than easy rest. It was devoid of unpleasant dreams. I can’t be one hundred percent sure of what it was I did dream about, but I know that it was nonsense, but a peaceful and harmless nonsense. I’ve missed such feelings in the past few days. Everything has been one piece of darkness or evil after the next. Though it may be too early and too optimistic to say so, maybe this dream is an omen for a better day approaching. Perhaps a turning point putting my life back on its axis. Like supernatural solar flares have stopped bursting in my direction causing the technology of my brain to go haywire has ceased and everything is business as usual.

               I open my eyes to find nothing out of the ordinary. Not a letter in sight. I listen closely to the world around me and find no sounds other than the clattering of windblown branches in the distance. It is not yet sunrise, and I’m wide awake, having slept the better part of yesterday away. No class until later this morning. I smile at that thought. I can do whatever I want with this time. Lazily, I take my phone off of the nightstand. 4:30 am. Okay, maybe I can’t do whatever I want. Most Coffee houses don’t even open for another hour. I turn off the backlight on my phone, eliminating the main source of light in my room. Once again, I lay in peaceful silence. I close my eyes contentedly because I so rarely have the opportunity to return to sleep for so long, or at least it seems that way.

               Blissfully I close my eyes, only to reopen them seconds later in restlessness. It’s like I’ve been sleeping for years. Now is the perfect time to be productive, or just mess around. Whatever suits my mood. Without my usual morning laziness and slowness, I get out of bed, and gather my shower supplies and take a respectably long shower. Refreshed and ready by 5:30 I feel like a person with her life together, like Stephanie. Outside, the ground is still a little damp from yesterday’s rain, but then I’m still not recovered from yesterday’s events either. These types of comparisons make it easy to connect with this part of the world. The silent part of it. The part that is influenced by mankind, but has its own way beyond the hands of mortal souls. Hopefully, I too, and more than just a storage space for carbon, water and bones. Hopefully I have such a spiritual existence that there may be something poetic about this life like there is about the earth.

               I roll my eyes and laugh at my odd musings. A poetic existence. What a laugh! Existence is just that. You are here. You may continue to stay in this form for a few more years, but you’ll decay. You, too, will become the ground that people walking, or perhaps the dust in urns that freaks out your relatives. Realistically, there is no reason for any of that, especially the urn. Realistically though, voices don’t come from nowhere.

               I stop myself from continuing on this train of thought. I need to just put it behind me. I have nothing to gain from putting the past on display on a mantel in my head. Hopefully, it will be deep in storage where nobody can ever find it. Better yet, it should exit my brain entirely like a bad dream that, no matter how hard you try, you can never remember in the morning, and within a few days will have forgotten even existed.

               I walk alone in peaceful and, thankfully, undisturbed thought for what must be a few hours, which I have absolutely no problem with. I walk long enough to see the sunrise. Though it is a normal daily occurrence, I find myself feeling that my ability to witness it from outside for the first time in long time is a reaffirmation of my earlier theory from this morning that everything will be all right. Judging by the appearance of the sun, it must be almost eight. I double check this by looking at my phone. Finding that I am correct, I turn on my heel to head towards a statue of the benefactor of Nick’s dorm building, where I always meet him before we go to breakfast on Tuesdays and Thursdays.