In Continuum.

South By South East: Prologue

This is what happened to me when I got home from Bintan.

I crashed through the door and was received by my mother's look of acknowledgment, as if to say," Yes I know you are home and you smell stinky". I smiled, and dumped all the wet clothes into the washing machine. Something about this household chore reminded me of the days in the military. I guess in both cases, I have been forced to do my own laundry, and the same urgent sense of exhaustion ran through my body as well. There has been a severe lack of sleep for the past few days, the kind of insomnia you get with hotel rooms. At least for me, hotel rooms have never been the kind of place to induce any forms of sleep. There is something about the silence in the hotel room, or the fact that a thousand people have already slept in the same bed over the years that scares me. I'm sure there is a phobia for such a fear, the fear of hotel rooms, though I am quite unsure.

Anyway, that has been the case for me over the past few days, despite soaking up the sun, sand and sea. My body ached to the movements of my muscles, but that did not prevent me from keeping awake either. In my mind, I plowed through the things I'd be blogging when I get home, but with the room drenched in darkness, the notebook being ten steps too far away and the fact that it wasn't helping me in falling asleep kept me from doing so altogether. I committed everything to memory, and told myself that it'd be the first thing I do once I step foot into my own home. However, that wasn't the case the moment the detergents were poured into the plastic tray in the washing machine, and the water started running through the tube at the back. The moment that happened, I went to the bathroom for a face wash, hoping to wake myself up from the long overdue sleep I've been deprived of. In five minutes, I did the exact opposite.

I fell asleep, and remained that way all the way till five minutes to midnight. At least I did come up with a suitable title for this trip of mine I had with my friends, which was a brilliant one if you ask me. I don't suppose I will be blogging about the trip in details tonight, because there is something about sleeping in our own bed after so many long days overseas that is irresistibly alluring. The way the blankets are folded into soft white clouds, the way the hollow in the pillow sinks into itself - I cannot resist the temptation. So here I am, typing a prologue to the long series of entries that'd be done tomorrow. I am tired, and I need a lot more sleep than what I already had. In the mean time, I guess I am just glad to be home.

Till the next entry.