2:23, 2:27, 2:31, 2:38, I just woke up wet with sweat again. The dream. It was the dream again. Now the damn clock just stares at me, reminding me I'm not asleep again. Sometimes I think we are all living a lie to some degree. Like the little old lady with three cats who sprinkles bird seed around her yard, pretending not to know the ultimate outcome.

These thoughts don't help me get back to sleep but there's always something. At times I feel these things are created by me to keep sleep at bay. With sleep comes the dreams, a self fulfilling prophesy and vicious cycle. Should I give up my soul for the solace of a peaceful existence? Could Hell have more jagged edges than life itself? The endless hours of "infomercials" mark night's passing. I love that nomenclature. "Quick gym", "Magic kitchen", "Super slide". Games to separate insomniacs from their money.

Yeah, I've been to the doctors. Taken their tests and their pills, biofeedback and self hypnosis, and wondered how to pay for them. I believe the whole truth is that life just fills in the space between birth and death. The only certainties. Sometimes lying in the dark I can see faces floating by, some living and some dead, some by my own hand. But really, you must feed a democracy a lot of lies and lives to make it grow. It grows like a cancer until it consumes its host, then it leaps to the next fool.

There can be a perverse beauty in the small hours of darkness. Empty streets, the scavengers that ramble through the dumpsters, the distant sound of boxcars being bumped at the switches, the sirens hurrying life and death forward, the quiet thumping of your heart. The crashing thunder of the silence.

I realize I can hear a voice calling my name.

"Jim. Jimmy. Wake up! Wake up you're dreaming again."

When I wake, Patience is sitting on the edge of the bed staring at me. She tells me I have been tossing and turning for the last three hours. She asks me where I go in my dreams. I wish I could tell her. I wish I knew.

Patience is my wife, but that is not really her name. Patience is my pet name for her because that is her nature. God knows how many times she's gone through nights like this with me. I would never have lasted this long without her.

Patience took me in like a lost and wounded animal, without asking a single question. Her kind eyes held the wisdom of the ages and a sweet sadness, mixed with an overflowing compassion and a never ending capacity for giving. From the moment we met it was like I'd always known her, and never knew her at the same time. Her love flowed from the inside, totally undiminished, pure and unfettered.

I now understood that I had to leave. I hoped in time she would come to understand that I left because I love her and had to go places that could hurt her. I hope she can forgive me. I wonder if I can forgive myself.

Life, the one game everyone plays and there are absolutely no winners. Your best hope is to be MVP, but there are no reenlistment bonuses. It's a one shot deal, no second chances. May as well not even look back because time is gaining on you. Your best bet is to get on with living, that's all you really have. Life doesn't give prizes for runner ups, and death gives no prizes at all. You don't even get a chance to pick a number. You can be playing pitch with your son this evening and lose a bet with a bus tomorrow morning.