It was one of those nights when no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get to sleep...or maybe that’s the key...don’t try so hard...I don’t know why it happened to me then, but is was probably because I was out of alcohol...no vodka, no whiskey, no beer...oh, shed a tear!...I’ve got to have my nightcap...but there was nothing to drink to be found...likewise there was no crap running through my mind that might keep me awake, you know, like money problems, or relationship problems, or something that’s a pain in the ass like that...I’ve gotten to the point where I just don’t care much about those things anymore...not enough anyway to keep me up at night...I just know that I kept looking at the clock on the gouged nightstand and it kept staring back at me with its big green eyes blinking every sixty seconds...no matter how many times I fluffed my pillows or changed sides, or counted roaches, I couldn’t fall asleep...maybe it was just too hot in that small, stuffy death trap of mine...I felt like I was a burning candle somebody brought home from the Old Yankee store and I was melting into the sheets...the more I thought about it, it seemed the harder it was to relax...I got up dripping wax and went out on the rickety back porch and sat down...and for a change, it was pretty quiet in my part of town...there weren’t any car alarms going off, or people yelling, or emergency sirens passing by, or assorted sounds that sounded like gunshots...I stared up at the peaceful summer sky and saw the moon which looks like it might be kind of interesting to live on...I look to the left and see Orion’s belt; at least I think it is...hell, everything looks like Orion’s belt to me whenever I look at the stars...I hear a dog barking from somewhere in the next block...I think it might be two blocks over, I’m not sure...you know how sound travels so well in the air of night, something to do with the refraction of sound waves...I don’t know that, but so I am told...I wonder if maybe my furry friend can’t sleep...I wonder if he has to go to work in the morning...I wonder what he is thinking...maybe he is just barking at the moon for some reason...I think that I should go over and visit him...maybe we could commiserate with each other...maybe he’s got something good to drink...so I’m listening to him go on and on and then the next thing I know is that I wake up with the sun shining in my eyes...I fell asleep on the porch in that damned old metal chair that I should have gotten rid of years ago except for the fact that I’m too lazy...I really need to go down to a quality furniture store like Goodwill or go on a curb patrol and try to find a better one...I don’t know what time I finally fell asleep and I don’t have any idea what time it is now, but I do know that my neck is hurting me like I was in a major car wreck...I don’t hear my friend the dog anymore...maybe he’s at work, or he called in sick and went to the beach for the day...must be nice...I hear a few singing birds trying to make themselves heard when they’re not being drowned out by the car horns, the garbage truck making its rounds with its obnoxiously loud grinding engine and squeaky brakes, or the next door neighbors yelling at each other or at the other neighbors as they usually do...I wonder if my friend ever got to sleep...he probably did...dogs usually don’t have that kind of trouble.
