50 hours no sleep drabble

So, in accordance with a bit of artistic stretches, I've decided to type up a blurb of sorts about the trucking company my step mom works for. To those of you not well aware of my situation, my step mother is one of those "its completely obvious she's a lesbian, she has the whole she-bang down and everything" types. Nothing personal against lesbians, she just fits the stereotype so well. Her hair is cut extremely short, buzzed in some places, she's got snake bites -and piercings in other areas that I only know of because she dragged me along when she got them- and tattoos, she also stands at a sturdy 5 foot 10 or 11 inches. She follows in the footsteps of her parents, her mother 6 feet, her father 6 foot 5 or so.

But back to her occupation, which is the entire reason I'm typing this to begin with. She works as a cross-country trucker, and has hauled everything from bandages to cellphones to cigarettes. This, and her girl-friend -who, I swear to the high heavens, I thought was some neighbourhood 15 year old guy when I first saw her- completely fills out the stereotypical lesbian image. But like I said, nothing against them.

The truck stop is a nice enough place. Its not state-of-the-art, but it doesn't need to be. This isn't so much a truck stop, as it is a compandy HQ of sorts. On our way over to the rest building my step mother explained some of the trucks to me after I questioned the colours. I'm fairly used to the heavy orange cabs as she took one home once, trailer and all. The things are massive, towering over the fence and the roof. She explained that it wasn't the colour of the cab that determined what it did, but the design on it. Those with a simple "Schneider National" printed on the side were driver cabs. I've yet to ask her what differs about them, so I can't tell you just yet. Any other cab with the more fancy "Schneider National" printed in conjuction with a winding road decal were company trucks, the ones sent out to haul goods.

The food serving area to my far right reminds me of the bus stops I'd been at when I first came down to Texas. Now that was a grueling trip. My father moved my brother and I cross-country from New York City to Abilene, Texas, a journey of about 1,750 miles. The trip lasted about 4 days, and transferred us between 3 or more buses. Have you ever tried sleeping on a travel bus? Not comfortable I tell you. When we weren't on the bus we were standing in a rest stop area, waiting for the bus to refuel. Between sitting and standing, I'd take my chances lying on the bus floor.

What I really wanted to talk about though, were the people at the truck stop here. Unfortunately I'm already bad at sticking to a topic, and I'm running off of absolutely zero hours of sleep at 7:30 in the morning. At four AM I looked over at the clock with that same cold dread you get when you're going over and icy road and your wheels can't get any traction. You're fucking screwed. The people in question are, of course, mostly gone now. Just half an hour ago this place was packed with all sorts of people, mostly men. The general image of a trucker one would get is of an obese white male, in his later 30's or early 40's, with a full grown beard, a slightly balding skull, and of course, a trucker cap. I can tell you for a fact that they do not live down that reputation. At least half of the men here earlier fit that image to a "T".

There were other men though, and whilst I know I should have, I didn't expect so much of a diversity. I saw a couple of younger teens, both looking like they weren't more than a couple years older than I and therefore fresh out of highschool. At first I thought they were like me and their mother or father had dragged them along to work. That would be ridiculous of course because no trucker, other than my step mother, would drag a teenager to work with them. The reason being that most of them, all of them, stop here for maybe half an hour to eat breakfast and get their cabs looked at.

I tried drawing a couple of them earlier and I swear on my mother fucking right hand that if my trackpad keeps clicking to a different spot in this document when I'm still typing, I'm going to fucking punch something. However, "Gone out the Window" but Sugar Ray is on, so I'm not too mad yet. My attempts at figure drawing were fairly awful as they involved three of the things I do not draw well: men, fat people, and realism. It also requires a bit of patience, a figure that doesn't move, and a great deal more mental stamina than I've currently got built up.

Now that the people are gone, I'm fishing for something else to talk about. I could splurge on my "idolized" topic that truckers are lonely people. I'm sure they are. Many of them clock in 10 hours a day driving alone, then retire to a hotel or worse yet simply pull over at a roadside stop and sleep in the bunks provided inside the cab. They don't get very much social interaction at all, and are gone from home for weeks at a time. When getting breakfast at the hotel this morning I was listening, none to politely I suppose, to one trucker describe the hell he's going through to get the company to let him travel home to Arizona for his 5 day vacation. "All I want to do is go home," he'd said, jokingly with that bit of bite that only exhausted frustrations can give. He hadn't sounded sad, but I'm both a writer and a woman, and we have a habit of overanalyzing everything we see and hear.

The beauty of it is that we can take something simple, like being dragged to work with your mother, and make some sort of story out of it. In this case its not a story, just pointless rambling no one will care much for, typed by a half-awake teenage girl with not much else to do for the next seven hours. I do wonder how much- holy fucking shit that was unexpected. The phone of the other person at my table, a black guy with odd features, just rang and scared the piss out of me. I could talk about him I guess, he does weird me out a bit.

I'm not going to lie when I say his head looks like a gorilla's. The back of his head is small in comparison to his jaw area, which is offset by some tiny lips in comparison that of course have that typical black pucker and plump. (what the actual fuck did I just type, I know I'm tired but wht the actual fuck). He's got manly hands until you get to the fingers, which aren't just extremely feminine and tapered, but he has the most ridiculously long nails you could imagine. Not to say they aren't trimmed, which they are (sort of), but the nail itself is long. It makes the last section on all of his fingers seem twice as long. On second glance, and a more observational study, I've noticed that his nails practically start right after the joint. That's a quarter of an inch more nail -from what my fingers tell me, I do have little Yuna hands after all- and that doesn't sound like much, but mark it off on your finger and tell me it doesn't look at least a little weird.

I can't pinpont this guys age either. His face is relatively smooth and without wrinkles, but his hair -it looks kind of weird on the back of that little cranial area- had quite a few grey curls in it. Tight curls, like the stereotypical black man has. His hair colouring looks like something out of a "touch of grey" hair dye commerical for men. So his hair has this bit of a silvery reflective look that does not match well with his skin. His skin isn't black black, just a dark chocolatey colour, but it looks like its absorbing the light and isn't giving off much of a reflection at all. (Like a black hole, I think as I slowly begin my not humours decent into the fiery pits of hell. Satan has made a special place for people like me, I'm sure we entertain him greatly.)

There are two vending machines on the wall opposite me, just right of some very poorly chosen locations for two office cubicles and I've decided to venture over and check the contents. My venture it seems, however, must be delayed for several more minutes. The man at my table, whom I have labeled Sanchez for humanizing effects, has gone off somewhere and requested I watch his laptop. I assume he took a leave to the restroom. I was going to go into detail about the cafeteria, but he has returned, so I shall now beging my quest to find out those contents.

Goodness, I can't remember it all so I'm going to make multiple trips, but they sure have some different contents than what I'm used to. T-shirts, stamps, flash lights, pepto bismol, reflector fabric safety vests, two kinds of headache relievers, cough drops, work gloves, and a truck stop pocket guide. The one to the right of it contains basic toiletries: soap and shampoo, nail clippers, feminine products, tooth paste and brushes, combs, disposable razors, detergent and softeners, deoderant, and band-aids.

Whilst re-checking the contents of the second machine, I asked my step mother about the cab types again. The second kind I didn't remember the purpose of are actually called "owner-operators", IC for short, and are simply cabs that are owned by the worker themselves.

My step mother is currently working on sorting the company-cab keys -I've obviously run out of things to write about- which are a jumbled mess. Each key has a tag attatched to it by a ring that tells you the serial number of the truck it belongs to. Being unceremoniously dumped into the bin, as I'm fairly certain they have been, its no surprise they've become tangled.

I now have six hours, five hours and fourty three minutes if you'd prefer I be technical, to kill until 2PM, when she gets off work and the two of us can go tear up the town.

We share a bit of a bond now, Sanchez and I. When one of us leaves to do something the other watches their laptop. Its nothing really, but I'm having difficulty remembering how to walk right if you think about it, so this is something to me. My most recent venture to talk to my step mother was one that has resulted in a pleasant surprise. The journey began at the question about my holiday plans from a friend of mine. Seeing as I never know anything about anything, I had to ask mother. This year for the fourth of July, the second greatest of American holiday's right after Thanksgiving, we will be purchasing and lighting our own fireworks.

Most obviously they won't be purchased from the corner stand about a mile or two down the road from us that leads into town, as it was completely demolished in a recent storm. That same storm also managed to tear light poles and telephone poles from their bases and fling them across the street, as well as knock over a rather massive tree in our own backyard.

I've become caught up with Andrew in the meaning and style in my stories, so I shall swap documents and work on "Red". (I really must learn how punctuation works.)

Sanchez has, after so long of a partnership with me, left to his truck. It was a silent goodbye, that of a man's. It bore no second glances back nor words of gratitude for the time spent together. A simple, cold and clean cut exit. In this I have discovered the true power of artistic liscence, granting you the ability to soak emotion into that which held absolutely no previous value before hand. I could, at hand say I am awed by this power, however, I am not. Instead I am completely amused and am currently searching for the next topic to fill with the angsty ways of a teenage author.

It seems in this stop that they have showers available, a logical deduction really as people who have been on the road for several days would no doubts long for a bath. This knowledge was brought about by the crisp voice of a woman over the intercom voicing "Travis, your shower is ready. Travis, your shower is ready." The man in question appeared to be another black guy, wearing the unholy combination of the heavy orange schneider shirts, and magenta skinnies. He looks to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Skinnies are not meant to be worn by people in such advancing years.

I now have five hours left here. Somehow my writing splurges have been aiding me in the passage of time. They have done naught, however, to replenish my engery levels which the sleep I should have gotten last night did not accomplish. If anything this has made me even more exhausted as I have to use what few functioning cells to string words together in the hopes of making a logical story. This is not even a story.

I am, however, also working on "Red", so it is not like I am completely wasting my time. I could work on TAON but I highly doubt I have the current mental capacity to so. I do not even have the mental capacity to do such a thing on a good night's sleep, which entitles me to all of three hours. Looking back on it, I see not much of a difference between three hours of sleep and no hours of sleep. Either way wires in my head are always misfiring and occasionally blow entire fuses to the moon.

Speaking of the moon, -yes, I know I get distracted easily, it is among my many terrible habits- we had a super moon of late. I've heard this is apperently rare and consists of the moon being in the closest position possible to the Earth in its orbit. It results in some rather bright full moons and rather large rising moons that resemble the colour of partially burnt oatmeal.

My step mother appears to be pointing out the location of something beyond my knowledge to a fairly well-dressed man. Whatever it happens to be is behind, technically in front of, as the rest stop door is located on the side of the building opposite the road- the rest stop building and behind a set of trucks. To point it out she came over to the side of the room that I am on, the "back" of the stop.

On her side, by the door, is a little office area of sorts. I've no clue as to the purpose, though I do know that one of them is to keep track of the company truck keys, but it is located behind a counter. Above is a black sign that reads simply "DALLAS DRIVER SERVICES." A help desk most likely. To the left of the sign are four clocks synced to four different timezones: Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern. I am no good with analog clocks, they give me headaches when I try to read them, but I will, for the sake of writing, attempt to read them. I will not enjoy this. The times are as follows: 7:15AM, 8:15AM, 9:15AM, and 10:15AM, respectively. This covers the four continental times zones in the United states. To the best of my knowledge there are four times zones, at least. I'm sure there must be another to perhaps account for Alaska and or Hawaii.

Watching TV to my far right is a man who resembles a slightly smaller built Hulk Hogan. The general head and beard is the same, but that is the end of the similarities.

Much to my authorial delight, Sanchez has returned. He has not acknowleged my presence it seems. Perhaps it is for the better. There is no need to relive that cold exit made, and no need to pull back that fond memory of our partnership. He is behind me, talking to a group of other truckers that are sitting in a dark, seperate room. A shady situation if you ask me. Perhaps he is discussing the body he needs to hide with them. They all look like shady characters, but you would too if you were sitting in the darkest section of a room for seeimingly no reason.

My step mother has gotten into a rather loud discussion about her love for watermelon candies with an older gentleman trucker. He is in his 50's or 70's, I should warn you I am not good with ages beyond the forties, and is cleanly dressed in a crisp white shirt and black slacks. He doesn't have a tie, but his white hair is neat as well, so he doesn't need so much formality as that. It does not make sense why neat hair will warrant the lack of a tie, but when one is running on two hours of sleep prior two a 50 hour waking period, one does not clearly want to make sense.
The gentleman who wished to go home has entered the rest stop now. I recognize him  soley from his green mountain dew t-shirt in combination with scruffed blue jeans. He has some chilli with him and is on the phone with someone. I can say, with artistic liscence, that it is perhaps his wife, girlfriend or even child. A child would make for the most touching story, of course, so let us traverse that path.

"I'm sorry kiddo, looks like I won't be able to come home this week."

"But daddy, you promised. Its my birthday and you promised you would be here!" The distraught child would reply. I have seen this same situation many times when my step mother cannot spend time with her actual daughter, Hayley.

He would, in a comforting manner reply. "I know I promised, but I just can't make it. But I promise this, when I do get there I'll take you out to the store and we can buy whatever toy you want to play with."

"But I want to play with you, daddy."

At this his wife or girlfriend, perhaps even boyfriend as I don't judge, would take the phone from the sniveling child and begin yelling.

"Again? This is the fifth time you've made excuses to not come home."

Richard, as I have chosen to call him will argue back. "Now listen, I can't help it, this is my job."

A cold voice on the other end of the receiver. "Its either your job or us, Richard."

Outraged he stands up and begins to shout into the phone. "My job is what puts bread on the table, Alex. Don't get like that with me. I want to see ya'll but the job is killing me. I can't just give it up to see you. I took it up to take care of ya'll."

On the other end of the phone there is silence for several moments before a sad and relinquished voice says "If that's the way its going to be, Richard."

The line goes dead. Richard is left holding the phone through which his relationship of five years has been cut short. He sinks slowly back into his seat and begins listlessly eating his now cold chilli. The cheese tastes of loneliness and the beans of regret. It is the chilli of his soul.

Pardon me a moment. My lungs are killing me. I may be tired but this sounds absurd even to my ears.

I noticed that the vending machines containing basic supplies that I mentioned earlier, in addition to having envelopes which I am fairly sure I did not mention but feel the overwhelming need to, there are no condoms in them. I'm not exactly one to do such things, but I know for a fact that in every toiletry aisle, somewhere along the lines are condoms. Truckers really do live lonely lives.

Richard is currently sitting with his head in his hands and looks like he has done something he has regretted. I find this exceedingly humourous considering the previous context I've placed him under. I've decided to go into further detail on his appearance. He is of average height, with a husky, not exactly obese yet, build. He has a full head of brown hair and not a grey in sight. In conjuction with a minimal amount of wrinkles, I can place his age at around mid-twenties. Most likely twenty-five or so. He has a full trucker beard, though it isn't long it has most definitely grown all over his face.

My step mother is now laughing about a joke a co-worker has made about the printer. "We call it Bob Marley because its always jammin'." I find this joke fairly enjoyable myself because I've seen it on facebook somewhere. I've seen nearly everything on facebook as I spend most of my waking hours on the laptop, never leaving my house.

That could be easily changed with the possesion of a motor vehicle. A liscence is not required, I can learn as I go.

To my delight I have discovered 4 more vending machines behind me, directly across from the previously mentioned two. These ones are just left of the shady side of the room, the one housing the supposed murderers. I must be careful on my inspections of them.

Oh I have discovered a great many things on my trip. Two of the four machines are regular every-day venders that dispense snack foods and sodas respectively. The other two are what have caught my eye. To the farthest right, the first one appears to dispense "proper" meals: lunchables, blue gatorade, and sloppy joes. Not my specific idea of healthy, but certainly much better than chips. Left of that is the snack dispenser, and left of that again is my personal favourite of the bunch. It is a coffee vending machine. I'm in no mood to get up again and find out what coffees it serves, but it appears to have a wide variety. And of course left of that machine is the soda dispenser.

The second thing I have discovered is that on a table behind me, located right in front of that shady section -which was coveniently empty- is a 1000 piece Bob Press puzzle. a good half of it is completed and all of the outside linework is done as well.

Travis has changed into much more inconspicuous attire now. He has on navy blue cargo pants and a grey t-shirt. He also has a cheeseburger. That particular detail, while completely unecessary, was feeling the need to be mentioned.

If you were to walk int the door, to your right would be the help desk my step mother is currently located at, I would be located on the other end of the room, and to your left is the kitchen. Its a quaint little thing, not meant to serve more than chillis and sandwiches. There is a dessert menu and also a small snack stand next to the register. It appears to be worked by a single woman, dressed in an eye-catching combination of a blood red work apron and the schneider orange colour prevelant in this area. She looks hispanic, but not overly so, and to be in her late twenties. She has the look of a college student who's spent 4 days and nights in a row without sleep doing nothing but writing papers because they attempted to have a social life and procrastinated.

I now have only 4 hours left. Half of the time is gone. Along with the greater portion of my already failing sanity. Was italics necessary? No. But it feels nice. I am going on another one of my many quests. This time I will attempt to attain a cup of coffee, perhaps two. Wish me luck, dearest Annie.

Now comes the time to relay the tale of my experiences. Firstly, I had a vicious battle with the coffee machine. It did not want to take the coins I was feeding it. Finally my step mother managed to make it work, mentioning the "10% rule". I alerted her quite readily to the fact that I am currently not even 10% smarter than my shoes, which remain untied. The woman working the kitchen is most decidedly very hispanic. She has done that little Puerto Rican bit where they pluck their entire eyebrows off, then draw on an odd looking flat line. She has the appearance of a south american though, Phillipean or Honduran. Her name was Ella, and she is most definitely in her latest of twenties.

I found some curious objects while I was exploring as well. The rest stop contains a small shop area, behind the vending machine and right of the help desk. The amusing bit is a single black shirt on display in the window. The shirt has a depiction of an orange trasnsformer and the cab of a Schneider National truck along side words in the orange colour of the company that read "More than meets the eye." I spent a good five minutes laughing at the absurdity of this.

I also found a stack of papers on a table near the entrance reading "Tire Bank Map" which of course depicted a map of tire banks across the continential US. The image brought to mind a regular bank, but instead of money it exchanged tires. I spent a good five minutes laughing at this as well.

Lastly, I have a new table mate. She is an elderly lady, probably in her fifties. She hasn't aged well, like most people and I'll leave the imagery up to you.  She does have on a honeydew orange shirt with those metal-bedazzle bits (they have a proper name, but I can't remember- STUDS, they are called studs, i think.), in the shape of a heart and peace sign. She has a tarnished silver pendant on a thin silver chain that resembles the end of a fork or spoon. I have fondly named her "Gramma".

My coffee, unfortunately, is still too hot to drink as I have just seared off my middle taste buds upon taking a testing sip. This is most unwelcome. Gramma has a small, slim red tablet, set up with an attachable keyboard so that it resembles a mini laptop. I looked aroud my own laptop screen and lo' and behold it does not simply resemble a mini laptop, it is a mini laptop -one of the DELL variety at that. She has what looks like cottage cheese and watermelon. Typical old people food.

Richard is at a table just across from mine now. He has an ASUS laptop. From what I can see it is actually the same make and model as my own. He shares a table with a friendly looking ginger woman who is wearing all black, and a black snapback. It is not a "SWAG" snapback, but the proper kind.

I can see it now.

Caught up in the emotions of his fresh divorce Richard sits alone at a table, a cup of coffee readily at hand. He browses the internet to ease his pains as he does not strike me as a drinker. With the other two positions to sit taken up by an out of place teenage girl  who looks as if she hasn't slept ever, a psychotic look hiding behind her eyes, and a poorly dressed old woman who is mostlikely just coming off the tail end of menopause, the only seat lef within reach of a charger is next to a man who looks as though he has had a rough night and then some.

She looks over in his direction as she sits, and they share a silent agreement that yes, she can sit there. As she opens her own laptop and begins browsing, she sneaks silent glances at the man. His eyes are red and puffy and his brow is furrowed deeply. He has a look in his brown eyes that suggests a complete loneliness. He sniffles and looks for something to blow his nose on. Out of kindness she lends him one from the bottomless chasm of a woman's purse. As he cleans up his face she asks him about the happenings that led to his current state.

As he explains the situation, with disbelief almost as he still cannot believe it, she nods and reaches out to gently pat his shoulder. It is a tender moment between two truckers who understand the loneliness of the long winding back roads of America. He buys them coffee and they begin a conversation away from his wife's exit. They speak of childhood and failed expectations. As the day draws on, sunset approaches and they realize, with sudden amusement they have spent the entire day talking. The woman must leave that night, as her truck was merely being serviced, but they exchange numbers and promise to keep in contact. As she leaves he wipes away a tear and waves goodbye as she drives into the sunset.

I really am tired.

Sanchez is still here. I've noticed that he has a very dirty wife-beater. This leads me back to my previous suspicion of him being a murderer. He is carrying around a duffle bag, which does not help matters one bit. He appears warry of my constant glances (who wouldn't, I probably look like an axe murderer myself about now), and has left. But He may be back later.

Travis has moved to a table closer to my own now and appears to have been joined up by a friend. The man is a fairly stereotypical redneck driver with a stetson but no beard or freckles. They are sharing secretive glances around the room, and are sitting a manner that tells me they go way back. They may be in cohoots with Sanchez. They are too far away for me to gather what they are saying, but the meeting appears to be drawing to an end regardless. The stetson man has given Travis a slip of paper and is heading to the showers, presumably to wash off the evidence.

In Travis's old seat near the vending machine are now two black men with long thick dredlocks. They looks similar enough to be brothers. Even their outfits are similar, grey t-shirts and shorts and boots. They have burgers and fires. The one in blue shorts is more thickly set, but the one in khaki shorts is taller. They eat in silence, not wishing to share tales amonst outsiders.

One cannot tell from their outward appearance but the two brothers have been living off the streets since childhood until they finally gained a steady job hauling cargo with Schneider National. They trust no one else, and are in a paired truck set up, taking shifts while driving to haul cargo as fast as they can.

Where Richard had sat a while ago sits a man I was drawing earlier. He is a light skinned black man in his early thirties, dressed in a navy blue one piece outfit that deigns he is most likely a mechanic. He has the look of a single father going through college as well. Two men have joined him, the first, wearing a cap and having long hair tied up in the back. The hair is as long as my forearm. The second man appears to be a ladies man of sorts, the kind who makes stops only at hotels and strip clubs. He has on wraparound sunglasses and a red v-cut red t-shirt. They are talking with an obsese black man about truck driving. Nelson, as I have dubbed the single father figure, is discussing the mechanics behind the driving to the man.

The four men do not know each other, but they work for the same company and that is enough to bond them. For the short few hours they spend together they are like the closest of families, trading stories of malfunctioning engines with no sign of damage and indredulous things seen on the road. A woman, the long haired man's girl frined has joined them. She has a voice like Betty Boop. She doesn't participate in the conversation, but watches smilingly from behind her coffee as they laugh amongst each other.

For several moments Nelson can forget about his troubles in life. His young son, William, is at home alone. He knows well by now that even though daddy is not always home, he still loves him. The seldom few nights Nelson can make it home early, he is either studying or sleeping. Lonely little William will crawl up beside his father with a ragged teddy in tow and fall asleep with him, only to wake up in the morning alone once more. William holds teddy close to his heart and tries not to cry. He is a big boy now, strong enough to keep safe while daddy is gone. He wipes away the tears and holds teddy at arm length. "Maybe we can spend christmas together with daddy." teddy was the last gift William had received, at the age of 3 as a birthday present. Daddy had not remembered anything since then. Not even William could remember his own birthday.

I have only three hours left now. My coffee has cooled substantially and now it is a simple manner of prying my fingers away from the keyboard long enough to drink it. Now that I can finally get a taste, it is nearly perfect. A french vanilla latte, the drink is a little watery but that is the extent of its imperfections. The vanilla is laid on subtly, along with the sugar, so that the coffee is still tasteable and the drink not horribly overpowering.

I have, after five and a half long and tedious hours, exhausted most of my creativity. I can feel my ability to weave the creative threads of fate from simply the appearance of these people waning with every passing minute. My thoughts have become a bit more coherent as I have settled into a groove, but the river is beginning to run dry. After a nights sleep, perhaps they shall return to me and like a torrential downpour, surge through these premade channels.

I feel that my best bet right now in writing is to be only half concious, not caring one drop for the contents or grammar and simply letting everything go, the minimal reserves of your stamina powering my fingers to type and allowing my mind to wander free.

A man who I can say is Richard's father is talking with a woman in a bright yellow vest. The refelctive sort worn by road workers. Richard still looks worn, but puts on a brave face in the presence of those who know him. He cannot bear to his father yet that his marriage has ended, after five long years, in a single instant. He talks to the yellow-vested woman, but his mind dwells on the ginger lady he's spoken with before. Her flaming hair and kindliness had captured his heart in a breathless moment as he had struggled to comprehend his losses.

It is quiet now. I am not sure if it really is quiet, or if I'm forgetting how to hear as well. I should hope I'm not as I quite like listening to music. I always have been terrified of losing my hearing. Most of the fear is situated on my right ear, which has caused subsequent bodily issues as well. The story begins in third grade. I attended the ghetto ass school "P.S. 84" a "Dual Language" school that upon passing one day, my friend Chingiz had laughed at.

In third grade, as well as most ever other school year in my life, I wasn't specifically popular as I was the only student who could do the work, namely because I was the only one who like learning. Because of this I was picked on alot. My comic books were torn up frequently, and I was bullied in both the cafeteria and the play lot -the lot was ironically a neighbourhood park. One day a boy stuck the eraser from a pencil into my ear and when I went to the nurse it had been pushed so far in she couldn't see it. For the next four years I slept on my right and was constantly digging at my ear in the hopes of removing it. I couldn't sleep on my left as I was terrified it would sink deeper into my ear with gravity. Sleeping on my right all the time deformed me a little (its not incredibly noticable, you can't even see it really, but I can feel it), though I'm very sure most of what it deformed was my sanity. Not that there was anything there to really deform to begin with.

Time is passing far too slowly, becoming slower as the release time draws nearer. My eyes have become heavier and I don't know if I can stand anymore. I am hungry. I must make the long and ardous 20 foot journey to the help desk to request food money from my step mother. The task ahead of me is long and risky, and I don't know if I will make it, but if I don't come back, Annie, I want you to know, I never meant what I said. You aren't really a slow bitch, I don't hate you. Thank Mr. Habber-Dashery for his hard work, and Dr. Drey as well, and if you find Pita, tell him... Tell him that I missed him. This is goodbye for now, Annie.

I have returned, and oh what a joyous occasion this is indeed. However, now is not the time for celebration. While I have managed to survive my periouls journey, I have discovered to my undying horror that my step mother has gone missing. And yet as I have typed it, so she has appeared. She has not been harmed, and appears to be in a good mood. I shall take my chances once more while the opportunity is still in sight.

That journey took up much time, but at long last I have returned.

There's only an hour and a half left here. The rest stop is packed now. I don't really have the drive to write about anything anymore. Richard is talking easily with the ginger lady, and Nelson is chatting with travis and the brothers. The stories aren't working well anymore and I have no desire to weild them in my favour. The red threads of fate slip through my hands and fall to the floor in pieces. There was noise around, I can hear all of it now. I suppose I'm on the last legs of exhaustion, depression. That awful state of neverending regret and remorse for things you could've done. I belittle myself for feeling like this. I have no right, and no amount of remorse can alter the past. And yet I cannot help wishing it would.

I want to sleep.

Why can't I just be allowed to sleep.

So much has happened. Too much. And yet nothing has happened. Eight long hours spanning what feels like years. I've travelled with broken families and life repairing friendships, I've made journies arcorss what now seems like an endless plain to me. I've made fun discoveries and came to terms with my technology.

Now. I...

I just want to sleep.