After Midnight...

It’s well after midnight. I lay in the bed listening to the sounds of the night. Far off, the sound of a police car siren erupts to handle some crisis. A dog barks and Maggie perks up her ears. I lay in the bed wrapped in my warm covers listening to the world unfold around me. Maggie is at my feet chewing on the rawhide bone I had given her the night before. I reach down to pet her and she licks my hand. She crawls up near me and snuggles up by my side under the covers as she continues to gnaw on that bone. I drift back to sleep again to vivid, startling dreams and a darkened room only alit by my porch light outside my back door.

I am awakened again and it is 3 AM. My stomach grumbles. “I need to take my medicine,” I say to myself as Maggie looks on earnestly from the bed. I do not feel well at all. I push the covers aside and get breakfast started. Today’s offerings are three pieces of buttered cheese toast, two bananas, and a very large glass of orange juice. Maggie walks into the kitchen looking up at me earnestly for any charity. I give her a large piece of cheddar cheese as I slice it for my toast. She is back again in moments after eating looking for more.

After my breakfast, I quickly gulp down the six pills that so define my life these days hoping I will feel better in an hour. “Please God, give me some peace,” I mutter as I head to the den hearing imaginary car doors shut outside my windows. I awake my sleeping computer to first check my blog. Tears roll down my cheeks to see that so many kind people commented. I am caught in the throes of loneliness and schizophrenia and the words of others mean so much to me. It is good to not feel so alone. I read the last comment from Austere and a Beatles song comes to mind. I imagine I am singing along side her. Her words touch my heart and I feel better for the moment.

My thoughts turn to alcohol. “A twelve pack of strong ice beer would be nice and make you feel better,” I think to myself. “No!” I mutter aloud excitedly. “You cannot handle drinking just a twelve pack. You will be a drunken mess by noon.” I solemnly sit in the darkness of my den only lighted by the harsh fluorescent glow of my computer monitor. “You will be okay,” I say as I try to reassure myself. “Give the medicine time…just give the medicine time.”

I only took one picture yesterday. It was of a partly cloudy sky. I share that with you now. On such dark nights as tonight such pictures remind me that tomorrows do indeed come. I long for daylight and another partly cloudy to sunlit sky. Darkness overcomes me at the moment.