Somnolence
It is one of the times when keeping his eyes open is a great battle in itself. His eyelids are heavy and his head is filled with a thick, drowsy mist that makes him yawn every other minute or so. He involuntarily closes his eyes almost without realizing it several times, only to force them open when he distantly notices his lack of sight and feels himself drifting into Morpheus' arms.
He stares at the fluttering, coloured pictures that come from the television screen. They hold no meaning for him. He is not even tempted to watch.
It has been like this for hours already, from the moment he came home from school until now, seven o'clock in the evening. It is too early for sleeping, yet he does not seem to be able to focus on anything. Anything is of course homework, cleaning the house or perhaps getting some fresh groceries. Jack is not home; he has to take up the slack. House chores have mostly been Jack's responsibility, but he does know how to do them.
He has already started on his homework, but with his clear lack of concentration he figures that anything he tries to learn tonight will have to be relearned tomorrow. It is simply not worth the effort. Cleaning would include handling breakables and he really does not want to have to spend extra money on replacements. Money does not grow on trees despite what his year mates seem to believe. Groceries includes getting out of the house and, call him paranoid, he does not want to take any risks when he is in this state. Someone has already tried to kill him in London after all.
He tries changing the channel and turns up the sound slightly. He holds a hand over his mouth as he silently yawns once again.
He feels so tired. He wants to sleep. He resists.
He both does and does not want to go to sleep. If it had been a bit later he might have been in bed already, but it is still early and he does not want to give himself a bad habit. He is fourteen and teenagers should be able to stay awake for longer than this. He has barely been up for twelve hours. Some would say that he is stubborn that way. He would just respond that there is a reason why he is still alive. Stubbornness is underrated, he thinks.
If Jack had been home she would have sent him to bed the moment she discovered his drowsiness, stating that he must have pushed himself too hard and that he should listen to his body. He knows that his body has not been pushed too hard. He knows the difference between that and this state of drowsiness. It is not the same.
This is like an illness.
It is not something he can control, no matter how much he wants to. He might not want to believe that, but it is the truth.
And yet, he is still awake.
It has to do with habits, he thinks, and why he does not want to have this habit. It could be dangerous if he should end up on another mission. He can just see himself trying to snowboard down Point Blanc in this state, or maybe paddle down the river during his escape from the clinic.
Logically, he knows that the adrenaline would have woken him up, but to get to that point he would have needed the strength and awareness which he now lacks.
But maybe, just maybe, it will not become a habit. He is acting more paranoid than he usually is, because he knows he is paranoid, but maybe he is exaggerating. Tiredness can do that to a person.
Is he even thinking rationally?
He would have gone to sleep now if Jack was home, but that may take some time.
So he stays awake, stubbornly watching programs he does not even like or really care to watch at all. He catches random details that may or may not save his life in the future, such as the fact that there are only twelve letters in the Hawaiian language, that dragonflies are one of the fastest insects in existence and that the world's smallest octopus, the Blue Ring, is also the world's most poisonous. All knowledge is valuable and all that.
He makes a valiant try at writing a short history essay on 'the Spirit of Locarno'. He is pretty sure he messed up something there. He cannot quite see what went wrong in the writing process, but he swears that something did.
By the time Jack comes home it is eleven and she clearly shows surprise at him still being up. She asks if he has done his homework ('I did some of it'), if he is hungry ('not really') and then tells him to go to sleep (''night, Jack').
In a way he had been testing himself, and he passed after what seemed like a long day of tiredness. It is over now though.
By the time his head hits his pillow he has already stopped thinking, well on his way to sleep. Jack is home now and he does not have to worry anymore.
She is a lighter sleeper than he is.