Awake

Nights are incredibly boring. While friends and family recharge their bodies, mine remains fully functional. I close my eyes and pretend to dream, but there is only so much conscious darkness one can absorb.

I read about torture methods used by the military in order to extract information from prisoners of war. The CIA uses sleep deprivation to attack the biological functions of a person's mental and physical well being. Prisoners are held in uncomfortable positions under bright lights to keep them up for nearly 180 hours at a time, eventually causing hallucinations. A mind can become permanently damaged from this “enhanced interrogation technique”.

I imagine what it would be like if I were in a room with an inmate undergoing this extreme form of torture. While he experiences fatigue, irritability, and difficulties concentrating, I would be alert. While he struggles with reading and speaking clearly, I would be articulate. As time goes on, he will become disoriented, have visual misperceptions, severe lethargy, and social withdrawal. I will remain awake, unaffected by biological boundaries.

Finally, someone to keep me company in the long hours of the night. Someone to talk to. As he fades into insanity, I remain sane. Someone else deprived of dreaming, forced to only imagine the comfort of subconscious fantasy. I no longer have to pretend.