Flip, Flip, flip , flip ,
The continuous flipping of paper.
As his finger perused the gentle and crispy skin of the book before him , the young man continued to exhale deeply.
" One thousand, three hundred and twenty four. .....", he was mumbling to himself. The rest of his speech trailed off even though his lips quivered visibly.
Flip, flip, flip, flip.
Looking around the room in which the young man was occupying , one would easily conclude that it belonged to a single person or that it was a student's accommodation.
A low single bunker bed laid at the left end of the room , while directly opposite it were a desktop and a chair on which the young man was sitting and studying.
Atop the bed were clothes thrown here and there in an apparent attempt to find a quick wear ( We are all familiar with this concept - except of course painful freaking clean nerds ).
Sprawled across the room were pieces of junk suggesting the resident to be lazy and dirty.
Flip, flip.
His eyes ran through the pages of the book like an asphalt in a motor car race.
Tick tock , Tick tock.
His gaze which had refused to leave the book it was glued to finally travelled in a flash as they fell on the wall clock that hung a few meters above his head.
Tick tock, Tick tock.
3:23am. That was the time the clock was telling .
" Thirty more minutes, I just need to...", his voice trailed off again.
He continued on his marathon reading.
" I must finish before dawn... Darn I have that test tomorrow ..... I also have to study for that too ", His eyes never left the pages of the book even as he mumbled those words .
Flip, flip, flip, Tick tock, Tick tock.
The continuous sound of the clock and pages combined.
His eyes continually darted from the book to the clock , then back to the book.
3:30am.
A small ticking sound echoed around the room as the spear hand hit the number six.
At the same time, our young man flipped the pages of the book, His eyes opening wide in shock.
" Hey !!! empty. ... How. ..... why..... What
...How come ". The page of the book was plain. No letters engraved, no wordings, no sentences , no paragraph ..... Just a clean sheet of paper.
" I could have sworn there was something on this page that time I took a sneak peak ".
Flip, flip, flip.
He started flipping the pages of the book towards the end. Still nothing.
' Wait a minute. .... Have I been cheated and scammed of my hard earned money? ".
He raised the book up and observed the title. The letters which were once imprinted there on the red cover visibly began disappearing right before his eyes.
Shocked, he let the book drop to the desk. Then he picked it up again and felt round the surface to check if it was real.
Lastly, he started scanning the book pages one after the other from the beginning but the entire book remained sheets of pure , white , clean paper .
" I must have read too hard for this time of the night ", he sighed. ' It's why I'm imagining things. ... come to think of it , I haven't had a decent sleep for the past five days because of late night reading. The effects are starting to tell on me '.
He rubbed his eyes with the back of his palm. Then he picked the book up again. This time though , the words were back there.
" Aha , said that ",he grinned as he flipped the page and proceeded to read the next lines.
He should have thought it through this time though because he had not even finished reading the next sentence when the letters suddenly jumped from the page and metamorphosed in the air right before his eyes.
" Not again. .... ", he groaned " okay letters I'm sorry. ...but can you please kindly go back to your book ".
But the letters wouldn't budge. ( Not that they would on any normal day though ).
" Common , I need to finish this novel so I can sleep ", he cried. He then turned to the wall clock.
3:30am. The hands remained where they were .
' I'm I frozen in time? , is this the effects of the insomnia mother warned about? , I'm I going crazy? ', many thoughts ran through his mind.
Tick tock, Tick tock, Tick tock, Tick tock, Tick tock, Tick tock, Tick tock, Tick tock, Tick tock, Tick tock, Tick tock, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip , flip.
The room began spinning speedily, sending a nauseating feeling into his stomach .
Bluurrrb !!!, Bluurrrrb !!!!!. He emptied the unglorious liquid of waste right there as he struggled to keep his balance.
' What is going on ?'.
Soon the letters began to encircle him. They continued spinning right beforehis eyes even as he struggled to keep them open.
"'"Complete The Plot ""' !!!!!!!.
Those mechanical feminine words were the last he heard as he began to drift into unconsciousness.
" So the effects of Insomnia were real after all.....".