"Why are you so restless?"
The fat old tabby cat lazily watched her pace. His half lidded eyes slid from side to side, keeping time with the rhythmic flick of his tail.
Second hand ticking ridiculously loud, the clock decided it was two am. This revelation went unnoticed, yet the timepiece was no less noisy for its neglect.
She might have looked at the pearly face, had she cared to know the hour. Between the time of ten and four, it was all the same to her; what did it matter? It was only when the sky began to lighten, like an old photograph fading away, and only then would she scuttle away to hide beneath the covers.
Never to sleep.
If she slept she only woke up tired, so what difference did it make?
"Why are you so restless?"
She didn't know. Who had asked such an inane question?
The neurones in her brain fired ceaselessly, electricity speeding about the charged grey mass at an impossible rate.
Tick, tick, tick. She was perpetually thinking. Who could be expected to sleep when there was so much to ponder, so many curiosities to resolve, a sea of knowledge waiting to be consumed?
Dialogue from imagined situations kept her company. Meetings she wished could only take place, with quick wit already prepared. They may have been a script for all it mattered, because she would never speak the lines in reality. The scenes she wanted to play out, they couldn't happen. The budget was too high, the actors had retired to their trailers and refused to work in such conditions. And who would direct besides? Certainly not her. No one would entrust her with such responsibility.
These duties were best left to faceless gods and devils. Fictional characters who had become a reality, to some, through the lie that was faith. Invisible authorities to be blessed and blamed at will.
How ridiculous.
"Why are you so restless?"
She clutched at her head, snatching hair between her fingers.
Shut up! I don't know! Why do you keep asking me that?!
Her nails bit her palms, beads of blood lapped up by hair already stained crimson. A ragged breath slipped from between her lips as satisfying silence stretched.
Eyes wide, she sank down to the floor amidst scattered books and papers. Notes and diagrams scribbled in red ink, like lacerations on pale skin, stood out starkly on scrappy paper. She struggled to make sense of it all this way: the reasons for existence thought out on the page.
Half-finished theories stared up at her mockingly, taunting her to just try and comprehend. Tears of frustration welled in the corners of her eyes. Banging her head against the wall, taking up the rhythm her pacing had left behind, she cried.
It mattered not how much effort she put into her search, since the answers eluded her always. A perpetual game of hide and seek, they occasionally showed their faces but never long enough for her to catch more than a glimpse. It was a tantalising and addictive chase, when you got so close. A taste of truth was a drop of chemical on the tongue; only enough to give you a buzz not a total high. She needed a real fix. Then again she was jittery as it was, a junkie coming down. What would be the after effects of total enlightenment? She hugged her knees to her chest, bracing herself as she shivered in the dark, skull still smacking the wall. Tiny cracks were beginning to radiate in the plaster, a halo of destruction, around her head.
"Why are you so restless?"
Bloodshot eyes glanced furtively about the room as the thump of skull against wall ceased. Getting awkwardly to her feet, countenance twisted in outrage, she screamed.
"Why am I so restless?! Because it doesn't make sense! We live day after day, learning, experiencing, touching, and for what? What's the point? How can it possibly make a difference to the overall scheme of things? What does it matter if I die tomorrow or if my life stretches out until I'm old and crippled? Today I cried, tomorrow I might laugh, why do we feel? I don't understand! How can I ever possibly know the answers to any of it, and even if I did what difference would it make? Why am I here? There's no point!"
Fists clenched by her hips, body trembling with anger, her mouth slipped shut. As realisation slowly seeped in, her fingers began to unfold. Hands fell lax at her side.
"No point. No answers. It just is."
She sighed, relieved. Her shoulders sagged as all the tension wound up inside her soul uncoiled. The tight little creases about her lips smoothed as a smile graced her face for the first time in forever. Eyelids grew heavy as the footsteps that pulled her languidly towards bed. Yawning, she crawled beneath covers patterned with moonbeams; the sky had yet to lighten.
"Why don't you rest?"
For once she did.