I'm Tired

Once upon a time, I wasn't tired.

No-one alive remembers me not being tired, but ballads and stories have been passed down through the generations. Fairy stories, some say. Wishful thinking. A relic from a simpler age, when people believed in elves and astrology and sleep.

But I believe it happened.

Call me naive, but I believe there really was a time when I wasn't tired.

Because all these stories are based on an element of truth. Even if they evolve into something preposterous, and are taken too seriously. There's still that original factual seed from which elaborate fictions grow.

So, just as a belief in gods stems from an initial encounter with natural phenomena or a portentous coincidence, so the belief in non-tiredness must be based on something.

Maybe, long ago, I wedged my eyelids open with toothpicks, creating the illusion of wideawakeyness. Or maybe I wore a T-Shirt reading "I'M NOT TIRED".

And as the years have passed, the truth has become legend, and people speak of my not being tired as a glorious primal law.

I want to believe.

But it gets more difficult every day.

The cynical modern world demonstrates my perpetual fatigue with every hour, every job, every institution. If you bring it up at a dinner party ("Hey, I know I'm tired now, but what if I haven't always been tired?"), you get ridiculed - occasionally even assaulted.

I don't even remember what non-tiredness was, exactly. I find it hard to conceptualise. It's like a fourth dimension, or an extra sense, or dark matter. My brain isn't equipped to deal with the concept of being wide awake. I don't have the neuro-processors to deal with it.

Tiredness is what there is. It's what there's always been - that's what all the signs tell me.

But the mere fact that I'm writing these words suggests that I yearn for something more.

I wonder what a non-tired Paul could accomplish.

Tiredness has been my constant companion these twenty years. I've managed to achieve some relative success: I haven't died yet, I own my own shoes, I've eaten a fish. But imagine if I was awake!

Why, I could be King of London Town, or an astronaut! I could have cured the sick, and fed the hungry (with the sick).

But alas, fate has dealt me a sleepy blow. And I must live my life like a zombie, staggering from place to place, day to day, snacking on brains (sandwiches), gouging flesh (sandwiches), and never knowing true humanity.

But behind my vacant eyes, something human flickers. Some remnant of a golden time. A mythical place, perhaps, but a place nonetheless. A place called Awakeness.

But aside from a few blurred black & white photos, the Awakeness Monster has yet to be seen.

Another idea has been passed on through the years - carried on the winds of time to eager young ears. This idea is:

GO TO BED EARLIER AND YOU WON'T BE SO TIRED.

There's something there. Some hint of the glint of some sort of truth.

But like the mermaid's song, it is carried away on the tide, over the horizon, always out of sight.

And tonight, at 1am, I'll sit, fatigued and withered, ignoring the warmth of bed in favour of looking on the IMDB for movie trivia on obscure, terrible 90s comedy movies.

A song will tickle the back of my mind. The tune will be familiar, but I won't be able to make out the words.