November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2019: Day 4: Night Owl

Image by Sarah Richter from Pixabay

Night owl

working all night long

night after night

far into the wee hours of the night

burning the midnight oil

burning the candle at both ends

never getting ten winks

let alone forty

night after night

going in for a night's work

running on fumes

an hour or two of sleep

"I'll sleep when I'm dead," she said

but then in the dead of night

at the witching hour

as she was walking her rounds

she saw a thing that wasn't right

any time of the day or night

the night owl that needed to call it a day

looking into the face of something

that wasn't really there

or was it?

She supposed she didn't really want to know.

~Cie~

Notes:

The prompt for the fourth day of the November PAD Chapbook Challenge was Night _____.

I wasn't sure what to write, and then I found that picture.

I worked as the night emergency contact person in a retirement community for close to ten of the eleven years that I was employed by the community. I was well-suited to night shifts because I don't sleep well at night. Then again, the whole bipolar disorder/add thing ensures that I don't sleep well at all a lot of the time. Also, working night shift jacks up a person's circadian rhythms. Plus, I had obligations during the day. Sometimes I'd work several nights in a row sleeping only an hour or two before coming back to work.

If I did this for long enough, I would start hallucinating. It was harmless things, like seeing a penguin in the hall or a seagull flying through the building. Were these things imagined, or was I looking into another world? I don't really know, but I do know that it was an indication that I really needed to sleep.