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I Cannot Sleep

Production #AF-03 Revision F

Copyright MMXIII Ironclad Engineering, a division of Sylderon Machine Works, in association with Memphis Belle and Statue.

Cover art produced by Padunk as Production #IC-10 for SMW Special Projects Division, illustration overlaid on SMW Photo-Electric #MICH-18.

Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is entirely intentional.

I cannot sleep.

Of course, it is only eight o'clock, silly time to go to bed, in my opinion, but there are a few other things I have to deal with at the moment. I have a phone call--my mother. Funny how the one who had previously castigated me for being "too emotional" about all this is now to the point of sobbing...well, perhaps funny isn't the best term to use here. "Ironic" would be a better term, or perhaps another word entirely should be used, one that is perhaps a bit more charitable...I'm just not quite sure which one, right now.

But yes, she is on the phone, wanting me to reconsider, but alas, that is quite impossible. This entire course of events was set in motion a few months ago, not in the least by her own actions, although I suspect her to be oblivious to this fact. Again, I'm not trying to be rude, just honest.

Furthermore, things are in motion now, quite literally so. Amtrak 59, The City of New Orleans, is pulling out at this very moment, and while I could, in theory, get off at the next stop (Homewood) and take the Metra Electric back, that is unfortunately quite out of the question (and besides, my tickets have already been bought and paid for, coded CHI-MEM and return). This is quite plainly something that must be done. I have gone from the irrational to the hyper-rational, if you will, at least by my own assessment--my pendulum swinging one way, staying too long there, then back, and locking in place at an opposite extreme (albeit one which is far less dangerous). I have assessed the situation, and arrived at a plan of action. This is the only way.

I cannot sleep.

It is a good hour to sleep, now, but my feline curiosity has gotten the better of me. I sit up against the window, staring at the lights as they flash by at a good sixty-five miles-per-hour. I relax in my gleaming silver chariot, towed along by a great grey and blue steed with the strength of of over four-thousand horses, cast-iron heart thundering at nine-hundred beats every minute. Every once in a while, I can catch a water tower or a bank, the little towns not quite important enough for the CNO to stop in, but more than proud enough of themselves advertise: Ashkum, Pesotum, Arcola, Neoga, Edgewood. And, of course, a few more that are worth at least a squeal of the brakes: Champaign for the college students, Mattoon for more college students, Effingham, Centralia, Carbondale for the rest college students, and then not a single straight rail south from there to the Ohio River.

I cannot sleep.

How one can sleep while soaring perhaps a hundred feet above the Brother of All Waters? (The Mississippi is the Father, of course) Particularly when one knows the story of how the current bridge got in that position. It's quite a feat, I'll have to tell you some day. But that is a different story. I stare down into the black void, the lights of the grain terminal to the right, a group of barges to the left, and English Progressive Synth-Rock, of all things, in my ears. Is that a theremin mixed in with the other electronics? I do believe so.

Once upon a time,

Once when you were mine:

I remember skies

Reflected in your eyes.

I wonder where you are

I wonder if you think about me.

Once upon a time,

In your wildest dreams.

Perhaps I am indeed asleep? Perhaps I am dreaming? Hard to say, what with all this...it is certainly hard to believe otherwise, when I take an outside look. As opposed to a look outside, as I watch the all-hours activity in the yards at Fulton. Is that...yes, it is, a blue and orange F40PH? (Go Bears! Wait...wrong shade of blue.) Perhaps I haven't even left Chicago...then I remember that they are being shipped to Paducah Shops, birthplace of the GP10, to give them another 25 years of ferrying commuters too and fro. Not to mention a nice gloss-coat...but I'm digressing, aren't I?

I cannot sleep.

I am certainly tired, but for whatever reason, I stay awake. Now all about me is green. Yes, it is something of a scourge, the kudzu vine, but it is at the very least a nice color. The Sun is rising to my left, long shadows over the stands of trees breaking apart the long sections of wetlands. Every mile, or even less, there is a bridge over more water, and glimpses of civilization, or at least human activity, you could say.

I'm not going right to the station, not the easy way. There is a collapsed sewer, and the railroad, the city, and the service provider are all arguing over who should pay to fix it. Silly quibbling over only a million dollars, but it lands me east of the city, stepping off the train and right onto a bus, a conveyance for which I certainly have no love. But, if it is what is necessary...this trip, after all, is what is necessary.

I cannot sleep.

How could I possibly sleep, as I see her? So soft, her enormous tail flicking behind her as a flag in the breeze, or in some other fashion that is perhaps less cliché. (I am running without sleep, after all.) I step off the bus and mew at her, then snuggle her tightly, dropping my bag and shoving her back against the wall of Memphis Union Station, my muzzle to hers, in a matter that surely imitates countless couple before me--if only those bricks could talk, the stories they could tell!

It is rather amusing, though, that I end up directing her mother in the drive home. I am a diligent snowmen, having planned things out in advance, having devised a proper route for the final leg of my journey, even if I am not the one driving; I'm a bit controlling in that way, greatly disliking uncertainty. But then, how am I doing this, you might ask? Taking this great risk, a meticulously-planned act of pure impulse?

Shut up; I never claimed to be consistent.

I cannot sleep.

Even in bed, I cannot sleep, as there are, after all, other things that can be done in a bed. And I am certainly doing them. We are...I am upon her, within her, that repose of greatest intimacy, steel-grey mixing with ebony, flesh to flesh and fluff to fluff, upon and within. I snarl and grunt, she chitters and groans, her climbing claws raking down my back in that most wonderful way, making my spine to arch and press still closer against her lush plushness. My own paws clamp down on her shoulders, claws pricking through fur to the flesh beneath, my arms, legs, entire body flexing to drive myself forward.

Face to face, having finally dispensed with interfering intermediaries, as my aching turgidness brushes aside the remnants of her maidenhead. She gives a simultaneous half-moan, half-grunt, half something else I can't quite put into words, my fluffy ears set to burning by such a sound, making me shiver not only with the base eroticism of it, but also no small amount of pride in my having caused such an response. And there is another, and perhaps another after that one--I cannot quite remember clearly, for some reason--until I respond with my own half-growl, half-snarl, chuffing and panting and snorting as my very essence pours into her deepest secretness, her body clutching at me within and without.

I know not what will come next, of course. How can I know what would happen precisely four years and six days later, in a city some 495 rail-miles north? How can I envision what will take place in front of Lorado Taft's Fountain of the Great Lakes, and how can I possibly know that my name--our name--would just happen to be carved in the stone of the great building beside us? How can I know about the significance of a simple government form mentioning union of a machinist and a pharmacy technician? Or that, a bit over a year after that, we would do it 'properly', and be parsonified and conjugally matrimonified by a Doctor of Divinity who resides in our vicinity?

I know nothing of this, of course. I know nothing of the difficulties, either, of the unemployment, or the spinal surgery, or the frustration and the bad moods. The eternal cynic in me is, at least temporarily, outvoted by the reluctant pessimist, expecting the worst and secretly hoping to be wrong. At least, I do know at least two things, as I lie against her soft fluffiness, burble-purring deeply, nuzzling at her cheek, my tail trying to coil with her own.

I love her.

I can sleep.