Prompt: The waking hour

The waking hour is one of darkness, filled with doubt and fear and uncertainties that are too fragile to see in the light of day. You wake in a whirlwind of confusion from a dream that you hope was mere fantasy. Your mind swirls with dangerous potentials that you try hard not to see too clearly.

10 minutes go by and the night feels like it might last forever. You try to clear your mind. You call upon every breathing and relaxation technique you can think of to make your thoughts a blank slate, but it doesn’t do any good.

30 minutes go by and you wonder whether you should get out of bed, or at least see what time it is. That makes you even more nervous though. If you know the time you’ll know how little you’ve slept. You’ll be trapped in numbers and know without a doubt that you cannot function on two hours of sleep, and then you’ll fall into panic and despair over how broken you are.

After an hour, you realize that it’s pointless trying to sleep any longer. Your eyes are weary and you feel trapped and floating in a timeless limbo. The need for order consumes you. At this point you no longer care about consequences. You grab your clock and squint at the time without your glasses to assist you and frown.

There’s only 5 minutes before your alarm will go off for work. The bubble of timelessness you had been trapped in bursts and the reality of responsibility feels heavy on your shoulders.

A lack of sleep prompts minimal empathy in our society.

Originally posted on Typetrigger. Fiction in 300 words or less.
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