Here Comes the Sun

No human should ever be up THIS early. I think that's what my best friend mumbled as he strolled out to his car this morning. Though, to be fair, it's mid-morning in London and someone there is enjoying tea right now. Of course, that doesn't matter a lick here in the States when I'm up way before my alarm. Or the crow of the rooster. Cocks rise in the morning with the dawn, whether you want them to or not. Take that sentence how you like.

Seems most of the world awakens before we do. Apollo is up, on the hunt. This morning, he stations himself by the fireplace. A good sentry, ready to pounce on whatever might come through that gateway. Spiders and the occasional silverfish would be on his breakfast menu. I'd applaud his devotion to the hunt, except I think he takes after me too much. Yep... the little soldier is falling asleep at his post. Seems that before 5 a.m. is too early, even for this tom.

Why am I awake? Why does my soft, pillow-top mattress sit empty when it should hold me and my dreams soundly within its frame? It will... soon enough. I am not up for the day just yet. This is only a temporary break in the R.E.M. cycle, which begs for me to return.

My eyelids grow heavier.

And that sneeze just now reminds me that I'm wearing the body of a man, not a boy. Still, I'm too young to feel my muscles ache from something so commonplace as a sneeze. Then again, my sneezes are mightly powerful. He says to comfort himself in his young age.

I am more alert than I let on. I'm awake, he answers finally, to see Keaton off to school once more. He was in town for the weekend and stopped by on his way north to drop some things off; and, as is our modus operandi, our conversations took a leisurely turn and like the timing of a shuttle launch, he missed his window. Apparently the new window was 4:20 in the morning. Aside from the ungodly hour (though, if you're of the spiritual yolk, is any hour truly ungodly?), it's probably a fantastic time to drive today. Early, before the holiday traffic hits. Hell, early before any traffic of any kind hits. Just a man, his car, the stars, and the road.

Fucker picked a good time to drive. And I use that term with complete endearment.

And THERE, my eyelids commit mutiny. Leading the charge, they begin the initial assault. Eyes close first. Then breathing slows. The dream-world breaches into this one, projecting sounds and thoughts about me. A klaxon is blaring... high pitched and in the distance. It's not real... but I can hear it on the edge of reality. In that place between sleep and awake.

I'm almost there again.

But I promised a blog post.

Another hit... a dream breaking through in full force. But it's gone again. Just in and out, like a ninja. I knew something was there... but when I looked, nothing. Can't even remember what it was about.

I didn't promise it per se. But when your best friend tells you to post again as he drives away in that way that only a true friend can ask by stating (it's a rare gift), you post. Because I'm pretty certain that once I wake up "in the morning", I won't have time to sit down and crank one out.

Okay, I'm tired, but even I know that didn't sound completely right. You know what I mean.

Ah... the little soldier has completely given up his station. Curled up by the fireplace, he jumps a little at a new sneeze and then settles back, outstretched across the hearth.

I think that I too shall retire. Before the dawn. She's on the horizon. Keaton is hedging his bets that he'll make it to the final leg of his journey before she crests. He's got that eastern route to wrap it up and it'll be a bitch to drive straight into the sun. Don't worry, he's chasing the stars these days. He'll make it.

But I won't. Not tonight. The theme from "The Office" just took hold, blaring around me, and there was something about... the need for something. Can't recall. It's all fuzzy and dissipating too quickly to catch. Wisps of thoughts fragmenting in a place without time. Were they ever even there?

I smile. And that's for only me to know why.

Time to go. To find the thoughts that tease me. To meet them and their bretheren. The world of dreams. Of sleep. Of life before the breaking dawn and all that comes with it.