She tossed and turned, slithered and squirmed. Sleep continued to elude her but she couldn’t put a finger on the reason behind it. Thoughts kept floating in and out of her brain. She kept her eyes shut to concentrate on calming her mind. Turned out to be a lost cause.

After a while, her thoughts turned increasingly bizarre. She opened her eyes just to shove those thoughts away. Rummaging through her bedside table in the dark, she caught hold of the book she had started reading that day. She switched on the lamp. It hadn’t occurred to her to switch it on earlier to find the book. Typical sign of a distressed mind. Flicking through it for a few minutes, she flung it back on the side table. What was happening to her? Why wasn’t she able to sleep? This was a girl who could sleep for 12 straight hours. Insomnia had never touched her before.

She slid out of her bed and walked to the kitchen. Grabbed the milk can out of the refrigerator, poured it in a sauce pan, put the pan on top of the stove and turned the stove on. “What an unusual nightcap!”, she thought. While waiting for the milk to warm up, she tried to scan her mind in the faint hope of finding any unresolved issue that troubled her. Absentmindedly, she went and sat on one of the chairs of the dining table. Pulled the box lying on the table, closer, and started munching on the chocolates. Her train of thoughts broke only when she fumbled in the box for more chocolates and hit dust. She pulled another chocolate box closer and emptied that one too. She started feeling drowsy so she trudged back to her bedroom and fell asleep as soon as she flopped onto the bed.

A hell of a hot mess lay forgotten on the stove, hopefully to be discovered the next morning.