The last sleep

How long does it take a person to fall asleep? Sometimes a minute, a few minutes or a few moments. Other times it takes long hours that seem even longer to a sleepless mind. Not so rarely the whole night passes away, the moon disappears in the morning sky, the sun starts to shine in all its glory and sleep remains an unvisiting visitor. For it does not take any length of time for a man to fall asleep, sleep strikes in an unknown instant, that can never be recalled after the awakening, it is waiting for that sleep that takes time.
As I sit here on the window sill, cool midnight wind blowing against me, the sky showcasing a particularly extravagant collection of stars and the moon nowhere in sight on account of the dense clouds, I look to my left. My penthouse apartment looks empty as always, a land of titillating beauty to a stranger, the dream of my childhood, and like every dream I have managed to achieve; completely fruitless. My beautiful wife is fast asleep in one of the rooms completely oblivious whatever I may do. I look to my right. The open space, larger than any penthouse, suite or apartment money can buy. I was never afraid of heights and this isn't the first time I'm sitting on this sill. If I fall, I fall.

My philosophical midnight thoughts divert again towards the notion of falling asleep. I managed to sleep in my childhood home when the dumpsite people nearby burned the trash in the dead of the night, with thick smoke in my lungs and tears in my eyes. I managed to sleep in the same house when I was woken up in the dead of the night by the sounds of my parents fighting, with a weight in my heart and tears in my eyes. I managed to sleep for the last time in that house when we were moving out, with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes.
And now that I have achieved everything a man could wish for, everything that my 10 year old self could wish for, I can not manage to sleep most days. There is no smoke from dumpsites that can reach this high to fill up my lungs, my parents can't fight in their graves, and why would I want to move out of this place. And yet, my heart wants to cry and there are no tears in my eyes.
Forgive me if I bore you with my words. They flow out of me effortlessly. That is to say, to stop them from flowing out would require a huge effort on my part. Effortlessly they flow, just so. I do not know where I'm going with this, there is no central idea, no plot, no story, but even as I write this I know this will go somewhere. So bear with me, and my words.
As a child I had always loved to write. I could make up stories about everything and anything. I used to describe things in the most intricate manner and eccentric of ways. My hand moved over paper scribbling letters legible only to me, telling of worlds open only to me.

Now as I write this I realize, as an adult I still love to write. Tragically, I do not have any stories to tell, I can only describe things by their color and taste, and my cursive is legible to anyone who cares to read. But I know no one cares to read, not when I was a child and not when I'm an adult. Just so.

Go after your dreams, they used to say. Be whoever you want, you have to be honest to yourself. And that's what I did. I told myself I wanted the money, the power and the glory. I wanted a lifestyle privy to the richest, I wanted that house, that car, that woman and that much money. That's what I told myself. In a way I was being honest with myself, I wanted what I wanted and I went after it. But in all that honesty I ignored the simplest of truths. About what I wanted to be. My parents had never been very supportive of anything let alone my writings. It was something done as a hobby by a person who was successful or retired or both. It wasn't something men did to make their lives and feed their families. Yes a few amateurs did make it big, but all the things they wrote about were vile and unspeakable; incest, witchcraft, murders and most of all disobeying your parents. To my friends I was even worse than an amateur, my writings used to be the laughing stock in the class breaks, if someone caught a hold of the paper. One of them took it upon him to stand up on a chair and read it out loud as obnoxiously as possible, making them even worse than they were. And thus, I convinced myself, I can't write, not for all the good it will do me and my family. I did what they told me. I went for my dreams, just not the dreams dreamt by me. I went for that house, that car, that woman and that much money and I believed in myself, but not for something I wanted to achieve. Just so.
I am almost out of words now. When I fall asleep this time I'll know of the moment. I'll know when it will hit and I will always be able to recall. I will put this pen and paper down, these words that do not tell a story but the words I know did go somewhere. The words people will care to read. I will step down of the window sill, step down to the right. Just so.