Drapes

As far back as I can remember, I haven’t been able to get to sleep at night. When I was younger, my parents would put me to bed at nine o’clock, under the cool, mocking August sun, and I would read for hours, then stare at the ceiling once my father had clumped down the stairs to announce “lights out.”

My new apartment is right in the middle of downtown Vancouver. At night I am swaddled in the growling of lonely car traffic and the high pitched ranting of alleyway madmen. Starting on Thursday night, this is joined by the the barking and yipping of drunken twenty-somethings as they drool out of the club across the street.

But the hardest part is the light. Coming up from the halogen lamps, filtering through my blinds, hitting the ceiling like a spotlight on an anti-gravity stage. I understand why animals howl at the moon: what civilized creature could sleep with such an optical racket?

After a few months here, it finally bothers me enough to do something about it: drapes. I am actually going to put up drapes. I will assess the window, find out where they sell these, these drape things, and possibly comparison shop. Inevitably, my inner researcher will be qualified to sell drapes by the time I’ve bought them, but no matter.

Blackness beckons. Bliss. Abyss… where did I put my tape measure?