Waking the Dead

Sometime in the 4 a.m. hour I was slowly pulled out of sleep, inevitable as gravity. I tried too hard to resist waking. In my sleep I was still at home in my apartment with Monica's steady heavy breathing with the whisper of a snore alternating with Maureen's soft whistle with our traditional breakfast of scrambled eggs to look forward to. Natalie and Angie just returned from Europe around to exchange stories and make me realize that each person's experience, even experience of the same place with the same people, remain completely unique and unrepeatable. Brigid, Mel, Sean and Thom, most likely sleepless like me, around to keep me company once I got up. I smiled at the disconnected image of a group of students at an event trying to organize a picture, all smiling at different times giving up being in sync. I turned half-awake and realized the wall was not to my right, but to my left; I was not tossing in my squeaky bunk bed but fidgeting in my chilly room. Once I was awake it was too unsettling to go back to sleep; the comfort of being at school wraps around me like a warm blanket on a chill night and I feel cold here. Too cold to sleep.