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Insomnia. From the Latin insomnus, the root “somnus” being sleep, the “in” expressing negation. Sometimes he traces the script on the screen of the PADD over and over again until he realizes that such a banal and pointless action completely negates the very reason for his wakefulness. That is, that Julian cannot sleep. Or rather the root of the problem is that he can sleep- long, deeply, restfully, in fact. He needs sleep. Somehow he, an augment, a genetically enhanced human cannot manage the two hour polyphasic sleep schedules of the greatest minds of human history. They were ordinary men- perhaps not ordinary in the ways that matter to history but biologically studied, he’s superior to them in every way. He’ll likely live to a hundred and forty. Which is over two hundred thousand wasted unforgivable hours.
Julian counts another wasted five minutes as he pens his own name with extra flourishes, a script hardly befitting a doctor’s scrawl as he takes another long drink of water. He tells himself that it’s coffee. That it will keep him awake, that somehow staying up another three hours will make him better. Even if he does nothing more than write his name over and over again erasing it, it’s better than sleeping. It’s practice. It’s practice for perfection. And that’s why he really ought to get his name right as well. Because one day he’ll be better. One day he’ll be awake forever and then he won’t need to sleep.
He starts over. He has time. He’s told himself repeatedly, irrationally ever since he was a child that as long as he doesn’t sleep then the night cannot possibly end. Sometimes he even believes it. Out here in space where there’s no sun to rise, he can stay up all night locked in that waking dream. A dream where time stops, and people live forever. A static moment where nothing happens, where no one dies, and he is completely and utterly everything that he should be. Julian writes his name again, seeing a loop that’s just a bit skewed, like him perhaps, but that’s not where it should be.
Julian reaches for the water again and finds strangely that the glass is gone. He doesn’t look up, instead switching the screen to a the reports that won’t be due for another two days- to something meaningful.
“I told you earlier I’d be to bed before too late, Garak.”
“Yes, and as much as I appreciate the effort, doctor, I’m afraid your lies are pitifully predictable. It’s almost as if you’ve let everything I’ve tried to teach you over the years slip mmm... what was that charming idiom of yours? In one ear and out of your... some similar orifice, I’m sure.”
“I’m fine, you know.”
“Ah now that one was a bit better. Now, I believe this is the part where I’m called to sit down, pat you on the head, and tell you that the nightmares cannot harm you.”
“You know I never have nightmares, Garak. Though that’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of things in my life one would objectively consider nightmare worthy.” Julian swallows a yawn and feels his jaw crack.
“How perfectly revolting.” The glass is set down empty next to him. “I used to know a man, a long time ago. One might say, if one were relaying the narrative like some of your whimsical human prose that once upon a time there was a despotic bloated lizard man whose waking mind was quite possibly the very embodiment of evil swathed in apathetic pragmatism, while he dreamed the blessed sleep of the innocents.”
“Is that supposed to be... comforting?”
“Is it? Oh do forgive me, doctor, I’m afraid that this pitiful shade your mind has conjured of me is woefully unsuited to superficial comforts.”
“You expect me to believe that I’m dreaming?”
“Or possibly experiencing auditory hallucination due to sleep deprivation of course, I merely postulate, I am only a tailor after all and certainly not a vaunted Federation Doctor.”
“You certainly sound like Garak.”
“To you, perhaps, but I assure you doctor, I’m a pitiful substitute for the real McCoy, as you might say. Were I here “in the flesh” I also might object to the over usage of dated human idioms.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To take you to bed, of course.”
Julian is silent in response. He looks down at the PADD again, seeing nothing in the surface but his own reflection. He yawns and shuts his eyes.
“Alright then, Garak. Take me to bed.”