A Sleepless Fog

I wish I could recall the detail. Any detail, really. But, all too soon, the darkness shuffles and I am alone again.

I stand up, grab a smoke from next to my bed and light it. The world pauses while I inhale and she leaves.

The door clicks as she leaves like a page turning. Or was it my phone’s alerts?

And I am already a million miles away, in another time and another place. Checking commodity and stock prices from the other side of the world; connecting with fortunes around the world as they are lost and won in a sleepless, electronic fog filled with addictive, churning static.

Are they up? Down? What am I missing? I need to know…

“I’m gonna take off now,” a voice says to me, “alright?”

I look up. It is her, she hasn’t left. That must have just been my memories filing the encounter away before. Or was it my phone?

“Sure,” I mumble as I glance at gold on my phone, “No problem.” Futures are down in Asia.

Click.

Turn.

I light a smoke and glance at the prices on my phone. Are they up? Down? What am I missing? I need to know…

And, far across the world as in the hotel room with me, the darkness shuffles.

I am alone again.