Soporifica

As I lie on my back, awake in my bed my mind meanders. It goes to places I have never been. It thinks thoughts that it should not think. It becomes charged with a desire to explore, to experience. As cars pass by, the clock strikes two. The light of the streetlight invades the privacy of my mosquito net. My own private volume. A space that is solely mine.

I don’t like the light of the streetlight. It is too strong. I much prefer the light reflected off the stagnant water that refuses to leave the gutter outside my bedroom window even in the most ferocious of Calcutta’s summers. The light ripples gently on the ceiling. I look straight up at it through the frantic blades of the fan. The fan seems desperate to catch my attention. It huffs and puffs in its attempts to cover the light. It fails. Light is my hope.

I continue to ignore the fan and to look at the light. I however fail to see it any more. My thoughts take over. I think of everything. I look back to the morning when someone snubbed me. As I grit my teeth I punch his face. My jaw relaxes. I think to two days back when someone told me that they care. That they respect me. The snub is out of my mind. Elation takes over. I am blissful. Yet not quite happy. I let my mind wander. It goes wherever it wants.

This is my time. Nobody tells me what to do. Nobody instructs me what to think. Sleep is my drug. I don’t need ganja or bhang to make my mind dig deep. I call this drug soporifica.

Frankly I don’t know when I fall asleep. As day merges into evening and evening seamlessly drifts into night, so soporifica is the twilight of my consciousness. Thoughts drift into my mind as the stars of the day gently appear and twinkle above the horizon.

I wake up next morning. There is no dawn. It is a new day. I get up…