Tonight I was restless and couldn't sleep. I'm suffering from the most terrible cold, and I was tossing and turning around, my head restless on my soft grey pillow, my whole body too hot, itchy and cumbersome in the hollow of the mattress. My legs felt as heavy as my flu-ridden head, my inflamed sinuses, my doleful weeping eyes. Every now and then a grim staccato cough retched up from my throat and broke the deathly stillness of the night.

Too much on my mind. My thoughts had dwelt for hours on terrible fears and pressing guilt, and these combined with my physical discomfort made me lurch up from bed and snap on the light. I picked up my wristwatch from the desk and glanced at it. 3:40 in the morning. Going to be about three I thought I heard outside some ghostly voice shouting in the street. I thought perhaps it may've been some drunkard returning home, some nameless teenager running up the street and shouting far-off for some imaginary girl. I heard his sharp footsteps very distinctly, puttering up and down the road, heard his ineffectual shouts forming muted, untranslatable sounds. But when I snapped off the desklamp and twitched aside the curtain a little to look outside the street was completely empty and uncannily silent, completely devoid of life. The only movement was a tiny star grimly twinkling its blueish light in the inky blackness of the sky just above the horizon.

So much on my mind. I have to, and will, get up early next morning. But my mind is consumed with too many thoughts to sleep.