I should sleep.

Those very words have been ricocheting through my drear-filled mind through six staring contests with the glaring digital numbers at the top left of the phone screen. It ticks up by another minute, and there’s a soft wave of pleasure as 59 turns back to 00 once more. It’s quickly replaced with the same dread once more as realization hits. I’d been clicking at the stupid box for far too long.

Idle games were meant to be idle. I close my eyes and count to five, as slowly as I can. Then, open them again. The only lights of the room emanate from the still-glowing phone screen. The mocking digital numbers continue to harass my soul.

4:01

I lose my sixth staring contest against the numbers. It would be roughly five and a half hours before the next class started. Assuming I skipped breakfast and ran to class after jumping into probably-washed clothes, I had another five hours and nine minutes. That would mean…

I take the moment to look up the length of a REM cycle. Some mental math and one seventh of a cycle later, I derive out I would just make the cutoff for three. Assuming I slept right away, which probably would happen. Damn self-diagnosed amnesia. At this point, I might as well get up, look up some porn to fill in the boring hours before daybreak. Maybe fit in a nap. It wasn’t like I was paying attention to anything in class anyway. At least not tomorrow. Every paper and grade was always a mad scramble, crashing into the last few seconds of the last minute.

It had all the signs of a depressed student. At 20, I had few aspirations except completing the dead-end math major I was bound to. Ideally without breaking too many laws or fucking over my physical health too hard along the way. I was supposed to be fortunate. I didn’t pay for college, I had two doting parents for that. At the cost of an hour of lies a week, I earned hundreds of dollars a day. Perhaps spending it on self-induced torture through the means of private education wasn’t the best of solutions, but it was better than not. At least, it was easier than thinking about the alternative.

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I silently swore I was going to have fun one day.

Not today. Well, possibly today given that it had past midnight. But not until my next spurt of consciousness.

Another seventh of a REM cycle goes by without an inch of success.

I should really fucking sleep…

…

…

The lights in the room turn on.

I shut my eyes by instinct, the sudden shock of brightness momentarily registering in the half-dream-addled mind.

“Hey,” a casual voice floats over.

I instantly find the lack of tiredness in it irritating.

I convincingly groan, grimacing at the brightness, pretending to the intruder that they interrupted my sleep. It would put them on the apologetic back foot in the upcoming conversation, for whatever they wanted from me.

After much dramata, I open my eyes.

Two piercing grey-blue eyes stare back.

I blink again.

The girl hasn’t disappeared yet. Instead, the hand held up in a half wave still stands there, a few fingers awkwardly curled as if unsure whether to extend or let themselves drop.

She’s pretty.

A few connections are hazily made. I live in a locked dorm room. Nobody was supposed to be in this room except myself. I don’t have a girlfriend… and I don’t usually swing the other way. Fuck toxic masculinity. I’m not wearing any pants. I have no logical explanation for the girl. I’m stupid and lazy, not to mention bearing as much structural solidity as a denatured protein. This beanstalk boy. He was a beanstalk boy who couldn’t care right now.

“Ey,” I mutter back, letting my head slump back to the pillow.

Exhaustion trumps urgency.

Insomnia trumps exhaustion.

A nihilist fuck-off for not wanting to deal with 4 am bullshit trumps both.

The lights flicker off again.

I sleep quickly.