“Sleepless” Chapter 3: “High-Functioning Self-Hatred”
Typewriter on lap.
Startled awakening.
“Hello?”
“What time is it?”
“Is it 4am?”
“I know I got off at 2am and went to sleep at 3am, but is it 4am?”
“It would really like it to be.”
“I would never sleep if I didn’t have to.”
“I’m still not so convinced I do.”
“I would like to run sprints at the track now.”
“In the darkest hours of the night.”
“Where am I?”
“Somewhere you couldn’t possibly imagine.”
“If I survive darkness, I survive anything.”
“I walk as something else.”
“I thought this isolation would bring peace.”
“Then why won’t this haze leave?”
“Wait, who did you say died?”
DAYBREAK.
RISE.
Obligatory phone check.
“How fucking dare you?”
“How could you?”
“If he was here, he’d stare at you in disgust.”
“What is this man who is cut from the same cloth doing on his couch?”
“You threw everything away for who?”
“You needed to go into the abyss, but you ran instead. You’re still running. You’re running with your eyes shut.”
“If he saw you and knew you, he’d torture you himself until you finally woke up.”
A phone call asserted itself on my psyche.
“Jeremy Knowles,” emerged in my phone screen.
“Hello?”
“Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Where are you working today? Please God, tell me you’re not working in Mission Bay.”
“No, I’m working in Oakland today. The restaurant isn’t open on Sundays.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
“I know he meant a lot to you.”
“Yeah, he did.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go to the gym and go to work.”
“Good. Good.”
“…”
“What did Celine say?”
“I don’t really think she’d understand.”
“You haven’t spoken to her yet?”
“No.”
“I see.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, well, I hope you’re okay man.”
“Thanks man.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Yeah, will do.”
I sat on the couch with the typewriter still on my left leg sitting at a slant against a cushion.
Getting to my feet was the hardest part, dusting off the paperweight from the 1950s.”
“There was a vitality, an intensity in every breath you had before.”
“Rising from sleep meant prayer, freezing showers, violent runs, and the drive to a heroic death by 40.”
“What it means now, I don’t know.”
I remembered a time when I took my mind and body straight to hell, so my heart could know Heaven.
I didn’t know anything of the sort at that point.
Existence for existence’s sake is criminally overrated.
Feeling close to death makes one feel most alive. This is the affliction of the adrenaline junkie: knowing this too well.
He knew this in a way.
Many said I was like him. They’d raise an eyebrow or two and gasp a bit, realizing the same cold, chaotic energy within. The psychotic work ethic. The trashing of the body to keep the mind sharper than an ice pick to pick away at the ice in my veins.
The default setting of being unsatisfied amidst one’s greatest achievements.
I never got to know him, and I never expected to. If the promise was fulfilled, then maybe we would have crossed paths.
All I was left with was a set of tear ducts that wanted to know how to cry.
All I was left with was a confused heart and a darkened mind.
All I was left with was knowing a kindred spirit had fallen, and this was not the first time.
“He’s dead and in a coffin.”
“You’re dead, and you’re standing in the middle of your room.”
“You waste of potential. You waste of life.”
“He hated himself just like you do, but he didn’t sit around and cry about it. He achieved the kind of greatness many said you would. He sat and stood alone searching his flaws to slice their throats, and here are your flaws reigning over you like anorexic slave-masters. He should be the one to keep his life, as you’re sitting here thinking so little your’s.”
“He’ll just torture you from his grave now.”
“He’ll hammer the corners of your skull with his words until your life is worth a damn.”
“Then you’ll know rest.”
And so it haunted me:
“You love me.”
“You love me.”
“Because I’m Kobe.”
“Because I’m a five time champion.”
“Because I’m one of the greatest to ever stop on the court.”
“But you shouldn’t.”
“You should hate me.”
“Hate me cause I gave you 4am.”
“Hate me cause I pushed you when no one else would.”
“Hate me cause I demanded greatness.”
“And greatness demands EVERYTHING.”
“Love me…”
“When you become greater.”