My eyes are like shining torches, penetrating the darkness when I would rather be asleep. Shapes emerge which I could not see ten minutes ago. Now everything is so clear that I might as well sit up and not pretend any longer that I'll drop off before morning comes.
This is not the first night I've lain awake in the early hours. In fact, at one stage, I thought I might have to ask for sleeping tablets. But I resisted. Instead I increased my level of daytime exercise whenever I got the opportunity, using up all my energy as best I could, so I'd drop off the minute my head hit the pillow.
It worked for a while. But the benefits were short-lived. Now I'm back where I started, waking up at 3am, being forced to confront my misery at the most depressing hour known to man. Perhaps I should pull the blanket over my head and hope the cosiness lulls me into a state of drowsiness. Or maybe I should force my mind to switch thoughts – to the minutiae of daily life. Unfortunately, distraction of the mind, while useful in any sanity toolbox, is not infinite.
I'm going to wrap the blanket tightly round me now, not because it'll help me sleep, but because it's a bit deathly cold at this hour. It's dark under here. I can feel the warmth from my breath. It's like central heating but more suffocating. I'm going to have to come up for air soon.
It needn't have been like this. Me lying here on my own with useless morbid thoughts. I should be lying with my husband, feeling his comforting warm body when I wake up in the night, or listening to his deep relaxed breathing and the occasional snore when I can't drop off myself, at least on the nights he bothered to come home. All I can hear now are occasional footsteps. But they're reliable and regular....more than can be said for him.
He's only been gone three months. It still doesn't feel real. It's like he's on holiday and could walk through the door any moment, except, of course, I know he won't. What I need is a fresh start. No more memories. Maybe by the time morning comes my imagination will transport me to the perfect villa where I can enjoy cocktails on the verandah with a new man in my life. But that will only be in my dreams.
There are those footsteps again. The prison wardens are pretty regular in this cell block. Maybe they think I'll break out and murder them too.