There are those nights, when work no longer rescues and I get not one wink of sleep.  Those nights, I turn to music or nightly drives. Most times, I just lie there with closed eyes, lights coming on behind my eyelids and my thoughts, the thoughts of others and a million and two memories flashing in and out. To lie like that- sleepless throughout the night is not as torturous as it might sound.  I’m a night person.  It’s a family thing.  We are, for the most part, night people- the whole lot of us.

Generation after generation, we have been creatures of the night and not too fond of the sun. It’s not so much that we are less of ourselves while the sun shines, although, I’ve found that to be true for others. It’s just that after so many years, there’s still that little something festering in our DNA which pushes us to prefer darkness and to love the night. And so, those nights, I lie at peace and restful- trying to sort out the faces and voices.

My grandmother is always there- many times with her teeth stained with blood and her lower half covered in fish. Other times, she’s just there- a face with eyes, nose and mouth and long dark hair. No body.  My mother, too, often makes an appearance- with her beautifully pale neck, slender wrists, and jewellery set just right to emphasize her paleness. There are also always other people- people I’ve known all my life, people I’ve known for a short while, people I met only once and…people I’ve never met.

Sometimes, I don’t bother to sort the faces and voices out.  I just leave them a circular untroubled mass- something I can stare at as a whole and think: “this has been my life so far”.  Sometimes, I’m pleased with the life I stare at; other times I’m not. It all depends on which face of the circle I stare at most that night.

Years before my grandmother disappeared, she used to tell me a story about people who could just let go. She used to say that there were people who died, people who didn’t and people who just...let go.  People who died were mortals. People who didn’t were immortal. And the people who just let go were something else- neither mortal nor immortal.  Maybe, just happy or sated.

As she told it, sometimes a person lives all he or she can, then, he or she can choose to live some more. Or he or she can choose to just stare at his or her life- realize there are no more faces, voices and memories to sort out. Then he or she chooses to let go…and become something else.

I’ve had many nights to decide which of these people I am- immortal, mortal or something else.  Those nights when I’m left to stare at my circular mass, I sense new faces, new voices and new memories.  And I know that I’m not yet or might never be the “something else”. So, I lie awake on those nights staring at and thinking along with my circular mass, waiting for another sunrise…until another sun bites.

 (V).Damien