How To Sleep Like The Dead
Drive. Drive for a long time, a long way, in a hurry. Do not, for any reason, get a hotel room. You can get out of the car to eat, stretch, or read, but it's the only place you should sleep for at least three days. And not much. Cover at least 700 miles each day.
Fret. Worry about any number of things. Worry if you should be going where you're going. Wonder if you should have called first, or taken care of something before you left. Think about places you could stop and try to mend a friendship, kindle an old spark with a potential lover who lives along the way. Worry if you will get back on time.
Eat. Truck stop food, Fast Food -- Flying J, McDonald's, Gas Station Pizza and hot dogs, Denny's. Subway when you must, fruit from a grocery store only when you can't stand it any longer.
Listen. Only to the radio -- there is rarely anything restoring on the radio. Tread the AM dial like an insomniac walking the halls, late at night, all the way across the middle of America.
Come back. Come back for a funeral, thinking about how life is spent, about people missing from it, about the time we all have left, and on how you learned while you drove that even with any amount of willpower and a heavy foot, it still takes time to get anywhere.
Lay down. Find your bed after a long, late night, empty of sleep except for two hours at a rest stop on the state border. Close your eyes, wait a few moments, and then pitch into darkness. Wait until your body and brain are again hungry for the light.
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