Eighty-nine hours with no sleep,
gone so deep, deep into the deprivation experiment.
Now there is no way back
from my own never-ending perpetuation.
I have shifted down to lower gears,
exposed my primal fears,
spilled exhausted tears,
and juddered to a halt
in a swirling brew
of screaming deliberation.
And yet, even here, in this pit, I trick myself
with the dregs of my adrenaline
and fading shock-waves of exhilaration.

I have passed through the realm of mere endurance,
and sleep is nothing to me now,
just a tantalizing bauble
that dances like an ineffective jester
in the court of my fatigued mind.
I am pushing weakly
against the skin of the bubble,
striving to enter the hidden dimension,
and leaving the acceptable face of sanity
struggling way behind.
I can almost smell unknown things,
I can clearly see auras,
I can taste raw progress.
Something is going to happen.
I know it will be profound.

The clock says almost midnight,
but I have no need to heed
the false concept of time.
Euclidean theorizing is useless now
in my sleeplessly stretching world.
I have lost the will to reason
and think casually about
various forms of suicide.
They seem so unattractive,
such cheap prospects.
I am now lost and timeless.
There is only unending light and dark.
The night terrifies me,
gives me the horrors,
grinds my circadian rhythms
into my yawning soul
with it's prehistoric knuckles.

Awake for eighty-nine relentless hours,
and still I want to push on,
searching for a vision,
seeking a new dimension.
My emotions are in the blender.
I am in the eye of the hurricane.
The world whizzes round me
like a horrific gyroscope.
My aura is festooned
with fluttering black ribbons.
I can sense death skulking around,
just out of view,
watching and waiting.
I am right on the edge.
I have entered the land of the zombie.
I need to escape.

Standing on my back lawn,
barefoot in the frost at midnight,
breathing deeply,
looking at the stars,
fighting off another crushing panic attack.
Scared witless by sleep deprivation.
The gate opens,
and in walks Horace.
Stands next to me.
Puts his arm round me.
Talks softly to me.
Whispers something.
Then he turns and goes.
I can see his footprints in the frost.
I didn't like that one bit.
He was dressed like Dracula,
combed back hair
and a long satanic cloak.
That was pretty bad.
But what was even worse,
Horace died from an overdose
twenty-five years ago.
This is getting way too deep.
I am really, really scared now.
I need to sleep.