Between the Black and White: Green light

June 7, 2024, 5:02 a.m.

You are the magic attacker of sleep, like a green light that shines through the dark.

Laying in the bed, you fight with sleep all the time. You turn off the light, slip into your quilt, and close your eyes. Darkness, the ally of sleep, stands still in front of you. You call your allies: red, yellow, purple, orange, blue, and pink. After three seconds, they all arrive and one by one leap into darkness and pop it, clashing with each other, slowly spreading and transforming into different lines and shapes, pushing the darkness into the background. 

In another second, however, you turn to your left side, and darkness surrounds you again, in a more rounded and almost ripple-like shape. For a moment, you think that it is actually quite cute, and there is no immediate harm in leaving it alone just for a night. Green light could coexist with darkness, right? Minutes pass as the darkness peacefully guards its place. 

Boom! A sharp image from your childhood of you eating a strawberry ice cream suddenly breaks the peace, and darkness shakes and twists, trying to regain its balance, as it zigzags in front of you, almost in a proud and arrogant manner. Woohoooo. Agitated by this, you could no longer hold the darkness back. Sprinkle onto it, and you slice the darkness into thin fragments, as you shake your head and turn it to the other side. Darkness is defeated.

Sleep, however, has another ally: quietness. Quietness is far more resilient than darkness. It does not make a fuss nor hide or sneak upon you. It only waits, for you, for time, for everything. You do not want to target it either, as it might refuse to engage in a direct conflict with you. Rather, it prefers torturing and slowly wearing you out, as it did with all your other allies — music, water kettle, footsteps… 

Observing quietness for a while, you decide to leave it and wait too. The greedy quietness starts to occupy all of your mind and body, shrouding out all the other sounds. No, like a green light, you would break it. You take a deep breath, and summon your new allies. Pom, pom. The sound of keys turning when your parents come home. Tick, tick. The sound of your alarm clock doing its job. Cutting through quietness, they frighten it with their almightiness and it dodges and creeps into every hole and corner possible. You could never catch it, however, as it runs too fast and could hide anywhere. As a result, you could only sharpen your green light, and wait to cut it if it comes out. You know where it is hiding, but you can’t get in as you can’t pour it out of your ears. All you could do is stare at sleep, and constantly play with your ears.

Eventually, both of you are exhausted. Sleep negotiates to cease-fire with you by retrieving all its allies, and yours. You are burnt-out and are almost without battery, but with utmost loyalty and self-pride, you refuse. You are waiting for your last ally, the first beam of dawn. 

Gasping, anticipating… It finally is here, slipping in through the window. You, the magic attacker of sleep, gain power again and defeat sleep, dazzling your green light.

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