Insomniac

It's a waste of time to lay in bed, tossing and turning, keeping my bedmate awake all night. In the wee dark hours, invariably after a disturbing dream, I can usually be found curled somewhere with my notebook, scribbling away (the pounding of my keyboard in the living room keeps everyone else awake). Mornings find me bleary-eyed, headachy, moody. It's no surprise I am compelled to write terror.
I awoke at 3:30 a.m., All Hallow's Eve, from a dream—a nightmare—I was being held captive by a religious cult whose leader was a Rue Paul-ish, less-than-elegant drag queen; a slim Divine (of John Waters film fame), who screamed at "us" (there were other unidentified captives) relentlessly. I escaped by slapping him/her and yelling, "You psycho drama queen!" before running from the place.
I couldn't get back to sleep afterward.
Being it was Hallowe'en, an inspiring day for me, I should have risen then and began scribbling, as I do when the mood hits like an earthquake in the middle of night. But I lay in bed, watching the laser red digits of the alarm clock click by the hours, all the good ideas, story beginnings and brilliant utterances flooding my brain in a deluge. What I really needed was sleep. I'd only slept four hours and looked forward to a probable late night ahead. So I lay there, eyes shut, hoping for deliverance from my unceasing imaginings.
For the next two hours I lay listening to the creaking house, the distant barking of dogs, the myriad and mysterious noises of night. As the world outside slowly made its way toward the sun, I mentally finished a short story I've been working on, re-worked a part of my novel-in-progress, and drafted several articles related to genre fiction, all of which vanished from memory the moment the clock screamed 5:30. The deluge of literary brilliance receded into the ether like a puff of smoke.
I must learn to accept fate. I must rise like the undead in the midst of night. I must obey this torturous muse who sleeps by day while I must tend to other things, coming to me only when I should rest. Perhaps that is its intent; to guide my hand in somnambulistic servitude, in the dark, away from the condescending eyes of the literati, those guardians against genre fiction. However I am so beaten, rejected by so-called "mainstream" publishers, I cannot escape the taloned clutch of the dark muse.
I am the Insomniac.

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