It's truly a strange feeling. I haven't slept for five consecutive days. I've started hallucinating; who says that drugs are no longer effective? Lack of sleep itself is a drug. I feel as if I'm being watched and as if I'm alone in my room, but someone is watching me and I can't see them. I'm lost in a dark void with no power or strength. I know there are many doors, but I only have the key to this void. I tried to sleep to escape this emptiness, but each time I tried, I wrestled with memories, creating scenarios for each memory that suited me... so I could be the hero... the hero of my failed story, as if I were writing it with an empty pen, because neither it came true nor did I sleep to wake up in a good mood. That's how I used to think, but now I am happy, as if what I was fleeing from was my destiny. I truly don't want to leave this environment, a black sea with its waves appearing beneath my sight. I am no longer what I was and I don't want to go back. It is but a life that will end by God's will or I will end it in a way that does not please Him.
I browsed through books and everything related to insomnia, but every time I couldn't find a result that satisfied me. It was as if I was caught in a whirlpool, spinning amidst words that don't renew... "Don't worry, you'll recover with time... You need to see a doctor... You should stay away from caffeine..." When looking at people's thinking, you realize that people are truly pitiable, a species that doesn't understand anything but is knowledgeable in every field. I went to the doctor, took sleeping pills, tried herbs, but to no avail. I thought insomnia was just a common illness that everyone experiences, and it was just a phase that would pass, allowing me to return to my normal life. I didn't know that insomnia would change my life, stripping mercy from my soul and turning me into a demon wearing a man's mask, because I was wrong; it's not insomnia but something I didn't expect to be real, something beyond my mental capacities. If someone came to tell what I'm about to reveal, I would have denied it.
Let me introduce myself first. Yasser, 23 years old, my hometown is Morocco, but now I am far from it in a country I wouldn't envy anyone for. I'm in France, having emigrated here when I turned 20, fleeing the poverty I was living in, searching for a livelihood and a bright future. But I didn't know that France would have more negative aspects than positive ones. Rats outnumber the population, racism against Arabs, night girls everywhere, to the extent that you'll find large brothels housing all types of women for immoral purposes, drugs of all kinds, and users are the minority. Children not yet thirteen years old use drugs of all kinds... It doesn't matter; I work in a nightclub. I don't like my job, but I'm forced into it because I have no qualifications or education, and I'm just a Muslim refugee to them. I work at night and in the morning I'm at home watching movies or reading books. A boring life with no friends and nothing to relieve the taste of exile. This is me and this is what you need to know about me, no more, no less.
It's eight o'clock; I need to get ready to go to work! Should I call it work or hell on Earth? It doesn't matter. I prepared myself and packed some food in my bag to take in case I get hungry because I usually don't eat, as no sleep means no appetite. I arrived at the nightclub and could hear the music from kilometers away. I entered through the back door, and there the smoke clouds filled the nightclub, and mixed smells made me feel nauseous. There was so much smoke and lights that you could barely see the faces unless you got closer. But is there an alternative? There isn't...
Kimi: Yasser, you're late again. Take six bottles to the front table.
- Okay, sorry. I know I'm always late, but you know the neighborhood I live in is far from the nightclub.
Kimi: Don't apologize. You know Rick doesn't tolerate delays, and to him, you're just a refugee. He can fire you anytime.
- Okay, Kimi, thank you.
I took the bottles to the table where a bald man, looking around forty, was with a boy who seemed much younger and three girls around twenty-five years old. I paid no attention to them because my job is to deliver wine, not to talk to customers. Many people in the nightclub talk, talk to each other, and talk to themselves and to me, but I don't respond because once they're drunk, I don't understand a word. It's just scattered words with no meaning. I feel like they want to say something, but their strength has faded. I don't know if alcohol makes them talkative or removes the external layer of a person.
I finished my work as usual: distributing wine, intervening in fights, and inhaling smoke... and now it's four in the morning, time to head home. Kimi and I left together, and I walked her home since it's only two streets away from the nightclub. I think Kimi is the only girl who shouldn't be working in a nightclub. She's kind and funny, and I feel like she treats us as family rather than as refugees. Kimi truly lacks any qualities that would make her suited for working in a nightclub, but it's circumstances and fate that control things, not morals.
As usual, there were fights and gunshots heard from a distance in the quiet of the night, and the rats searching for food also invade every street. We reached the street where Kimi lives; she went in, and I stayed behind to watch her go up to her house. The street where she lives is really frightening at this time.
I took a cab straight home and ordered a pizza to be delivered because I'm too tired to cook, even though I'm good at it. I ate, watched a movie as usual, and now the film that never ends is about to start. The film I've hoped would end since I first set foot here, but day by day, I'm more certain that I'm in the midst of a deep sea, and I don't know how to swim. A sea that contains me as if I belong to it; it truly doesn't know that I crave solid ground.
This is the seventh day without a single minute of sleep. I'm really starting to hallucinate. I see things and hear voices—a voice coming from the kitchen calling my name, even though I'm alone at home. I see someone looking at me, but there's no one there. Am I really hallucinating? I don't know.
I washed my face with cold water to wake up a bit and looked in the mirror. Something strange is happening to my features; my face has become a bit pale, my chin has become more defined, my lips are smaller than they were, and my canines are starting to show a little. I think it's just hallucinations from lack of sleep.
I left the house at seven-thirty in the morning because what's happening at home is starting to terrify me—not from what I see, but from the idea that I can't sleep, which is worsening. The world is starting to feel crowded, with many faces, voices, and footsteps. I don't know if lack of sleep enhances the senses because I see more than a thousand faces per second, and I feel the footsteps around me as if they are inside my head. What bothers me even more is the sunlight, which makes me feel nauseous.
I saw the café I usually go to on Saturdays and Sundays, the two days I rest from the bitterness of work. The café was empty; there was only the waiter and an old man sitting by the window. I entered the café and took a table far from the door to escape from the noise of humanity.
I took a newspaper that was on the chair. I don't know why, as I really don't want to read or browse. My body can no longer handle any effort, and even the waiter interrupted me, looking astonished.
Waiter: Hello Yasser, would you like a vegetable juice to relieve the hangover?
- What?
Waiter: It seems from your eyes that you're drunk.
- No. I'm not drunk, just as usual, a coffee with no extras.
Waiter: Alright, the best coffee for my friend Yasser.
I spent a long time in the café watching people through the window. I don't know why they are in such a hurry, but what I know for sure is that I'm not the Yasser I used to know. Something is happening inside me, but I don't know what it is.
I left the café and went to a restaurant. I ate a little; I didn't eat well but tried to nourish my body to keep going. I then went to the pharmacy to get some vitamins so I can go to work at night without being exhausted.
When I got home, my mind was still occupied with what's happening to me—seeing ghosts and hearing voices—but I'm convinced it's just due to lack of sleep.