And here I was, thinking I was doing better. I mean, I haven't gotten what many would consider a healthy amount of sleep recently, but I was getting more than I had last week. I thought everything was finally settling back down. I thought the hallucinations were stopping.
As with most things though, I just keep having the best luck in this area, too. I've never had an episode this bad. What's worse, I'm not sure I've truly convinced myself that it was an episode. Usually, when I talk to Dan about the kind of stuff I see or hear when I haven't slept in several days, he kinda takes it in stride. He reminds me that it's all just my mind playing tricks on me, and he helps me stay grounded. I know that, if I think I saw something and Dan definitely didn't, I'm probably just imagining it.
It was different this time. I told him what I was seeing, and for the first time as far as I can remember, Dan, didn't give me a look that said he understood, or that he thought what I had said was funny. He looked at me like I was crazy. You know the look you get, or the look you exchange between friends, when someone says something that's completely nuts? Maybe your cousin claimed that the Illuminati controls the World Health Organization, or the waitress serving you breakfast just said that vaccines cause autism. It's the look you get on your face when someone says something that ludicrous, the kind of look that you don't really want others to see but that you can't help yourself from making, because you're not sure you can believe anyone would be crazy enough to say something like that. That's the look Dan had on his face when I asked him if he was seeing what I was seeing.
Right, I should probably explain what I saw.
I went on another hike tonight. Different trail from the one I've mentioned before- this one is a little more mountainous, but I enjoy it when I'm in a decent mood. Nothing abnormal happened, no weird noises in the woods and no fake horror movie dolls. The weird shit only started on the drive back home. See, Dan was driving (as always- it really isn't a great idea to let the insomniac operate a motor vehicle) and I was staring out the window, watching the world go by. It was pretty misty out tonight where I live, so the woods and the house we passed looked like something out of a horror movie: Thick fog keeping you from seeing more than a football field away, with the woods packed tight around this tiny, lonely looking cabin. The house itself was pretty nice for how deserted it looked. Wrap around porch, low white fence, and shack just to the left that might have been a tool shed. It was quaint, the kinda place I wouldn't mind moving out to.
Fifteen minutes go by, just more woods, more fog, and Roger Waters on the radio. Soon, another house comes into view. Wrap around porch, low white fence, and shack just to the left that might have been a tool shed. It was quaint, the kinda place I wouldn't mind moving out to.
If you haven't picked up on it yet, I'll make it clear: We passed the same damn house at least a dozen times. We never made any turns, we weren't taking any sort of curved road. The road behind us disappeared into the fog, and into the fog we drove. Only one thing changed, on that entire stretch of road. Someone moved in the yard around the house. At first, I didn't even notice him, because he stood so goddamned still every time we drove passed. But each pass, he got a little closer. First, he was by the trees in the back, wearing some sort of camo, because I didn't notice him standing against all the birch. But every time we passed, he was closer. Not moving, still just watching us go by, but definitely closer. I think it was the third pass that I noticed him, standing on the porch at the side of the house, perfectly still. The last time we passed, he was almost up to the fence, just far enough away that I couldn't really make out his face.
Then we took a turn, and Dan pulled into my driveway.
There isn't a stretch of road like that anywhere near my house, much less one that passes the same house a dozen times without taking a turn. I asked Dan about it, asked if we had been going in circles for a while or something, hoping maybe I just hadn't been paying close enough attention. The look he gave me was a mixture of amusement and confusion, but he said we hadn't; he had just driven straight to my place. When I explained what I thought I had seen, that's when he gave me the look that said he thought what I was saying was crazy, but he didn't say that. Instead, he told me that maybe my mind was just playing tricks on me, in a voice that seemed a lot less certain than his usual way of speaking.
I dunno. Maybe he was right. Maybe I dozed off while he was driving, and just dreamt the whole thing.
So why do I feel like I haven't slept in days?
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