They say in the older days, when electricity is yet to be invented, when the price of a candle can afford a peasant's meal for a day, when nobody goes out when darkness swallows the earth, people sleep at the set of dusk. That is what I learned from watching History Channel.
Old nocturnal habits have began disrupting my Circadian Rhythm. I arrive home at past six. Dinner time is at eight. The full meal I eat - the only one allowable after starving myself the whole day leaves me in a state of sluggishness. I become a couch potato after turning into a gym bunny a few hours earlier. Since my living room is also my sleeping quarters, I end up dozing off after watching my favorite TV shows for an hour. Body clock wakes me up at past midnight. And no matter how I force myself back to sleep for the supposed-to-be six in the morning work schedule, the attempt becomes an exercise in futility.
In the older days, people sleep twice at night. They get up at around midnight to do some chores that would not require them to leave their fortress homes. The landscape must have been shrouded in complete darkness, save for a billion stars turning the sky into a patchwork of lights. The silvery glow of a round moon was the only source of solace, if she takes her place in heaven.
But in the age of 24-hour television, of call centers and artificial lights, Night becomes irrelevant, not even for sleeping.
And so here I am, after downing a pill that would easily induce slumber, with the mind on the verge of a shutdown, is looking forward to a union with my pillow. An hour or two of shuteye is enough to keep me in a state of wakefulness until noon. After which, the same cycle begins again, leaving me sleep bound, leaving me slumber less until I get used to the pattern and after so many nights of whining and so many nights searching for the sandman
The midnight break will not trouble me anymore.
There is no reprieve. Six am. Off to work.