Sleep

Mark felt his eyes growing heavy. His head felt numb, and his mind felt like it was racing, though there wasn't a thought in his mind he could clearly make out. His hands hovered over his keyboard, knowing that he must press forward with his work, though he could hardly believe that his fingers were still moving. He had a strange feeling that when he read over what he typed in the morning, he would have to do a lot of reworking. He briefly considered just putting it off until then, but in the meantime his fingers continued to plow ahead as though with a mind of their own.

Abruptly he found himself standing up at his desk. He didn't particularly remember standing up, but nonetheless he was standing. He let his legs carry him away from the brightly lit screen and into the kitchen, his arms pushing the door out of his way with more force than was necessary. If he thought about it, he might have realized he had made a fighting gesture to open the door that he really only ever saw in over the top kung fu movies, but he was too tired to register the thought now. His fingers curled around a glass, and he had to take all the focus he had to make sure that it didn't overflow as he filled it with water.

He quickly chugged the liquid, feeling the cool sensation rush through his body as though he were being possessed by a ghost. It didn't wake him up at all, but it felt like the most vital thing he could have been doing in that moment.

In the blink of an eye, he was in the bathroom, peeing it all back out.

Then he was back in front of his computer all over again. As his eyes slowly focused, he realized that the work he had thought he had done previously was non existent. He must have imagined all of the movements that his fingers had been making. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. What felt like an eternity later, he forced his hands away from his face and blinked his eyes back open.

Not even a minute had passed since he sat down.

"What the hell am I doing?" he muttered to himself. "I need to sleep." He stood up roughly and stumbled the few steps it took to get to his bed and collapsed onto his pillow. He flopped around on the bed, trying to get comfortable, then remembered that taking off his glasses would probably help with that. He rested them on the table beside and laid back, staring up at the ceiling.

Very suddenly, he wasn't tired anymore.

"Every time..."