Insomnia
Sometimes, when I was 14, I would tell my mother that I was going to sleep at Shiree’s house that night. And Shiree would tell her mother that she was going to sleep at my house. And we would wander the streets of our little village for hours when everyone else was sleeping and sometimes we’d try and get some sleep in the stairway in the flats (but it smelled like pee in there) and sometimes we’d wrap ourselves in my coat (she didn’t have one) and try and get warm and to sleep in the doorway of the community centre. And finally, 5 am would come, and daylight, and we’d wander around the streets again, waiting for the milkman to come and leave us some milk (and sometimes, if we were lucky, yogurt!) on someone’s doorstep. And we’d drink our milk and continue to wander and wonder why we decided to stay out all night anyway, and let’s not do it again, is it?
But we did.
13 May 2008 Christine Gill
tags: stories
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