Re-runs

It was a long night.  My apartment was fairly cold, with a draft coming through the window, so I was sleeping under a layer of blankets so thick I imagine they'd be able to stop a bullet.  But, after an hour, I'd get so hot that I'd have to kick off my coccoon - only to have my sweat freeze on contact with the air.

I'd fall asleep, dream for a little bit, and then wake up all sweaty.  My body was loosing moisture so quickly that I was getting dehydrated.  Yeah, from sleeping.  So I'd get up, get a drink of water, and try to sleep again.  And the process would repeat - a half-finished dream, a hazy awakening, and the icy shock of december air on clammy skin.

For a moment, I compared myself to those airborne paratroopers in Band of Brothers, during the siege of Bastogne.  Of course, it wasn't a fair comparison - they were outside in sub-zero conditions with no winter clothing, whereas I was sleeping next to a drafty window with the heat turned on and thirteen layers of blankets and comforters.  But, when it's 3 am and you're so tired that you're starting to imagine your pillow is talking to you, you're not exactly going to make apt comparisons. 

And boy, that pillow was racist, let me tell you.  It was talking about setting a cross on fire and putting it on my coffee table to "put the fear o' God" into the cushions on my couch. 

My brain all garbled from sleep deprivation, I'd ignore my paratrooper thoughts and racist pillow, and go back into a half-doze and dream.

What was worse was the fact that these dreams were not new.  They were dreams I've had before - some were dreams that have been recurring for years, to the point where I knew what was going to happen next during the dream itself.  And some were just re-enactments of TV shows I'd seen in the past.  Or movies.  Or conversations I'd had about albums.  And so on, and so forth. 

After about the fifth time I'd jolted awake, sometime around five or six a.m., I remember mumbling "I fucking hate re-runs".  Then I burrowed back into my blankety coccoon, and decided that sleeping pills might be a good investment.