He does not sleep well.  It is a strange bed, different colors on the walls surrounding him, more than the usual amount of whiskey floating through his veins, and fragments of dreams of empty highways, a strong wind blowing, the moon at midday, Hui-I’s face with the faintest trace of a smile lounging on her lips, a song he can’t quite recognize, a dog barking in the distance.

He cannot sleep well under these circumstances and yet he refuses to open his eyes, climb out of bed, put his feet firmly on the carpeted floor, and begin his day.  Instead he keeps the covers pulled tight against his chest, up to his chin, a sigh, perhaps his own, reverberating in the air.

There should have been a different ending to this evening, but somehow it has eluded him.  And now, half awake, his mind a fog he cannot peer through, he does not know what that could have been.  All he knows, in his present state of mind, is that it should have been, could have been different, is not what he half expected when he woke the day before.

And so, he stubbornly hangs onto what little sleep he can squeeze from this night, hoping against what he fears to be no hope left, that it will be different upon waking, different after a good night’s rest, only this has not been a good night and the rest he craves proves elusive.

He does not sleep well this night.