Me and Sleep, we sat on opposite sides of the bed last night staring at each other. Like a married couple that no longer wants to sleep on the same mattress but is too fucking exhausted to even talk about it. Really too damn tired to argue about who’s taking up too much space or hogging the sheet. Who snores. Who should maybe brush their teeth before getting into bed. Neither of us wanted to be there anymore. But you know how it is. You reach that point where you got so much history that it’s easier to hate each other than to do anything about it.

After a bit I lowered my gaze and just got up and put pants and shoes on and went out. I didn’t even look at her again. I just shut the door behind me and walked outside. Where do you go at 3 a.m. though so why fight this shit and why fight anything at all? Just roll with it so I walked over to the gas station to get something to drink.

Extra large iced coffee. Just a little milk and one sugar.

You want sugar?

Just one.

Iced coffee?

Iced coffee.

So I walked outside with my iced coffee and stopped under the lights. Fifty big ass white halogens and one minute I was walking in the dark and next it’s all Stanley Kubrick sci-fi white light and bleached psychedelic. I stopped in the white void and looked down at my arm, everything magnified by the brightness. Every pore exposed. Every bristle hair standing stiff like on a horseflies ass. The hair on my head and my skin crackled and bulbs behind my eyes popped and shattered in the sterile laboratory light. I remembered how much I love the smell of gasoline. I remembered the first time I ever thought about how much I love the smell of gasoline, one frozen winter standing in a blinding white snow morning emptying a 5-gallon can into the tank of the Land Rover.

Everything bleached white.

White, white, white, white, white, white.

White snow.

White light.

Gasoline.

Iced coffee, with just a little bit of milk and one sugar.

All night gas stations with a Dunkin Donuts inside, and sterile white halogen lights, and a sci-fi network of devices to explode in white foam should the whole damn place just blow the fuck up.

Where would we go anyway when Sleep drives us out of bed, if it weren’t for all night gas stations with a Dunkin Donuts inside, and a guy from somewhere on the other side of the planet to make us keep repeating our orders until we’re absolutely shit-sure we are getting exactly what we want?