Sleep does not come easily.  I am lying still but the beehive in my mind is buzzing.  My eyelids are laden with exhaustion, shut solid with the itch of slumber.  My heart slows, my breaths are calmer, deeper.  My limbs are heavy – lead rods pushing into the mattress.  I am the image of sleep.
But inside my head the bees swarm.  Ideas sting me into wakefulness.  I am swatting at them, calling over and over, ‘hush now! There will be time enough for that in the morning!’  But the buzzing is incessant.  The bees deluge my consciousness, crowding, writhing, climbing over one another.  I scream at them ‘I WANT TO SLEEP!  I MUST SLEEP!’
Sleep does not come easily.  As each conscious hour passes I fall a millimeter at a time into the realm of rest.  I begin to dream.
Voices.
They are singing.
Two together, a bit fast in tempo but perfect in harmony.  I know the song and sing it with them.  They falter, the next lyric forgotten.  I try to help the sirens recall the missing frames.  I try too hard and the act of remembering has shocked me awake.  Comeback!  I sing the song to them but their voices return muted, faded.  Try again, I whisper, while most of the bees are sleeping.  Breathe deep.  Breathe calm.  Picture still blackness.  I am just beginning to fall off the brink, enveloping the bees in a fog of paralyzing smoke.
And then they rise.
Write this down! Write this down! They sting again and again.  Scratching legs.  Cutting wings.  Piercing ends hurl poisonous coherence through my blood.  Reluctantly I lift myself.  The alarm clock glows 2:45 am.  I turn on the lamp.  Pick up a pen.  Open to a clean page.  I pour out the words in smooth blue waves.  Perhaps now they will let me rest.  I finish, close the book, cap the pen.  The alarm clock screams 3:19 am.  I sink into my blanket.  Breathe deep.  Breath calm.  There are no worries, no plans, no queries.  I do believe the bees are sleeping.  I am finally lost in that black stillness.
And then--
The sudden hum of wings.