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What seemed like infinity lasts a quarter-second before fleeting into the sullen air. The world outside returns. The echoes of light diminish, scorching quickly like that of a Polaroid, colours that dim from red to black. Jisung can feel the rushing blood in his ears, the thudding heart in his chest, and the adrenaline humming in his system. Every muscle in his neck squeezes tautly, like a metal wire.
When Jisung was a boy, he captained a fleet of starships at night. A ragtag bunch of toys created the fictional armada: spitfire models, a sci-fi sword, a Batmobile, obscure figures from tabletop games, reproductions of Thunderbirds and Star Wars vessels using Micro Machines, and Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. He wasn't fussy.
A composite narrative derived from an amalgam of books he read and films he watched, he managed to create a whole storyline around them. Lying in bed at night, he would fly them around his head, with his breath making the noise of their engines.
This was the only thing that sometimes, often, helped the boy get to sleep, before vodka, before pills, before anything that worked.
Perhaps the size of the world he had built in his churning head, and its details, calmed him down and forced the noise out, just occasionally. Jisung believed that he inadvertently stumbled upon a self-hypnosis approximation. It takes rhythmic breathing to make the engine noise, which relaxes his heart rate and even tricks his brain into slowing down.
There were nights Jisung fell asleep only after being awake for longer than he could recall. It was the kind of sleep deprivation that was painful. He would sleep for not too long and then wake up as if for the first time he was breathing as if his body was deprived of oxygen. He had originally believed that you could not die of insomnia, and that led him to rule out the possibility of trying medication. As it turns out, you can.
He must have woken up 'n' number of times in the ten hours he was in bed. Not for that long, but enough to divide the sleep into un-refreshing pieces. There was a new nightmare for each disruption.
Unlike most people, Jisung doesn't need caffeine to stay awake at night. He turns to look at the digital clock, neon signs that read 5:30 am, He’s supposed to be up in about three hours.
So he Google searches—
‘how to fall asleep’
—and tries the ideas suggested by this forum for health. According to the articles, he was spending more time trying to fall asleep rather than sleeping. Jisung sits up and attempts the military method; calming the muscles of his face followed by breathing exercises, repeatedly, but to no avail, the words "don't think" over and over again. He appears to be as fidgety as ever.
Next: More breathing exercises? The 4-7-8 breathing method.
He placed the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, behind his two front teeth. Letting his lips part slightly and makes a whooshing sound as he exhales through his mouth. His breath seemed to stutter in his lungs before he let it go, feeling the tension drain from his body… “Nope, this isn’t going to work”
“Huh? ASMR? Oh no, is this my last resort? How are these meant to be called 'comforting sounds'? Seriously?”
There is a tenseness to his muscles that makes him more like a mannequin on the soft mattress than a child of flesh and bone. Jisung wants so much to melt onto the soft foam, wrapped in eider-down, and drift into the world of dreams. Yet his brain was a violent whirl of stupidity, trying to organize the chaos in his life. It sought to discover a way to control the capriciousness of people, to acquiesce and please them so that their encounters were easier, less draining. Of course, the task was pointless, life is far too random for a human brain to take the billions of factors that come together to form just one day for one person.
Jisung knew it was silly, but his mind still had its way with things. Particularly when the sun was setting and the wind was quieting.
What can he do?
He sits on the edge of his mattress, trying to steady his breathing, and hangs his head low between his knees, burying his hair in his hands. His eyes sting with tears.
Please, let me sleep.
Because the only break he gets from the chaos of the world is sleep, and it seems far too unfair to get even that taken away from him. Extremely cruel.
He eventually allowed himself to fall on top of his bed with slightly frustrated pants and closed his eyes.
He frantically swipes his phone screen with shaky fingers, as if doing so will reveal an app that will grant him any sort of reprieve. And perhaps it does, because his random swiping leads him to listen to a couple of late-night podcasts before landing on one conveniently titled 'Your Daily Insomniac.'
Jisung scoffs, raising an eyebrow. He expects to hear only static from the speakers of his phone because that's almost it? Again, what time is it...Surely nobody is going to do a Livestream right now?
But much to his surprise, there’s... a voice. A talking voice.
“To survive, we tell ourselves stories. But often, even when change is both possible and desirable, our stories become set, frozen, unchanging, particularly the tales we tell ourselves about ourselves.”
Startled, Jisung blinks, frown deepening as he strains his ears to listen:
“...and this is CB97, Christopher to my mother, and Chris to most of my friends, staying up with you all night until the sun rises...”
Jisung's heart constricts for reasons unknown to him, and his stomach swoops with a sensation he does not have a name for. Is it possible to feel comforted by a voice alone?
Some voices, he muses, are only meant to be heard, as though the world agreed at birth to magically give special vocal charisma rights to those individuals.
Here is one of those—low and modulated and chocolate-smooth. Goosebumps ghost over Jisung’s arms, and he sits up a bit straighter, attention focused on the host.
“...the perfect playlist for nocturnals like me,” the radio host – CB97 – drawls, sending shivers rippling down Jisung’s spine, yet calming his pulse at the same time.
"And if you're having trouble falling asleep, fellow night owls, I've just got a song for you: Sleep by Joseph & Maia."
It's like CB97, whoever he is, knows just how Jisung feels and plays exactly the lullaby he wants.
Jisung scoots back up to lean his head against his pillow as the muscles along his neck and shoulder lose tension. With another yawn, his eyelids begin to weigh heavy.
The blonde boy sets the volume of the stream just below the level of the bird song around him and the phone gently beside him on a haphazardly placed giant plushie. There is little or no traffic noise for it to deal with at this time of day, and no roadwork yet either. There is something about the slight crackle to the music that enhances it for Jisung, it is the accompaniment to his ride to dreamland.
When his voice comes back on, Jisung starts snoring.
A routine. 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. He waited every night for the rest of the week. One where Jisung required the voice of CB97 to fall asleep every night. For reasons unknown to him the man's gentle baritone acts like a spell on his overly restless mind.
On his own, he still can't doze off, but although he had been a man struggling to breathe underwater before, now it feels like an oxygen tank has been given to him to help him cope.
He supposes it must not be very healthy, because what if the podcast stream gets discontinued one day? It's not like he's got an alternative, though, so Jisung chooses to go with the flow. He has been tuning into CB97's radio show for the past two weeks, which he learned begins at 3 am and finishes at 6 am, just in time for work.
Jisung’s body clock readjusts itself so that he only starts to snooze in the wee hours of the morning, at least he gets to sleep. So while it’s not good, it’s not bad either.
The intro to Chris’s Your Daily Insomniac started over the speakers of Jisung’s phone, the standard greeting washing like a wave over his anxious brain.
CB97 wasn't your usual podcaster; he didn't put out episodes of plain, weird noises that might be calming to some people (who weren't Jisung). What he did was mostly chat.
He told stories of his life—one that wasn't easy in a way that even Jisung could commiserate with—and gave fans tips, answered questions and even bad-mouthed the people who were trying to give him anonymous hate mail.
Then one night, Jisung is faced with the same thing he was afraid of, "No lives available at this moment," as he taps open the Livestream app on his phone.
His ears start ringing. Pure Static, at this time of the moonlight, like a radio station. Static, like a TV that's broken.
His stomach lurches and coils, as he grabs his phone harder. Oh, no. No, this isn't possible. He lies rigid in the trappings of his duvet with each passing second, the static noise only rises in his ears as if taunting him. He did not move, did not turn, did not even flinch with the overwhelming sense of reality, and after years of sleep deprivation, his fight or flight reaction was still ingrained in his body.
That night, or the night after, and the night after that, Jisung didn't sleep a wink, because wherever CB97 has gone, it seems he's not back yet, and the boy is afraid he may never.
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So it’s fast approaching 3 am the day after when Jisung—eyes bloodshot and cheeks hollow against the planes of his skull—drags himself down to the market downstairs.
“Well, well who do we have here?” he remarks. The boy’s face screamed youthfulness if those shining eyes are anything go by, and much to Jisung’s delight, he stood a head shorter than him.
Then he dips his head, seeming to remember his manners, in a short bow. "Welcome."
Jisung doesn't have the energy to make chit chat, but he glances at the boy’s tag to note his name.
"Lee Felix—," he slurs, half leaning into the ramen and chip aisle. “—Do you have anything for insomnia??”
Felix hesitates and scratches the back of his ear, as he attempts to recall, "I don't believe this is a pharmacy..."
Jisung's shoulders droop, and his posture droops even more if possible. "It's all right." He could hear his stomach growl a little bit. Sighing at the sensation of hunger as he wrapped his arms around his body, trying to ignore it. The boy was starving and fucking cold.
“Here, just take it yeah?” the shiny platinum blonde boy replies, shoving banana milk, along with a ton of stuff in his hands when he heard someone come in, the bells chiming as it rattled with the glass pane. “It’s on me, I may not be able to solve your sleeplessness, but—,” he points to Jisung’s stomach with a finger and continues, “—I sure can help with that.”
The growling grew louder, Jisung could feel the rumbling in his stomach, and murmured a soft thank you in response. So the rumours were correct—staying up late makes you want to eat more.
Not like I wanted to stay up late…
Just as he turns to go, though, Felix mentions, “Um...you know, you sound a lot like him.”
"Like who?" Jisung glances over his shoulder.
"My brother. Hyung doesn't sleep much too." Felix's eyes turn sparkly, taking on a faraway glaze.
"O...kay." Jisung nods politely, uncertain whether to indulge in further talk with the kid regarding his big brother.
"He and I are in the same boat, then. I hope he's doing better than I am."
Felix's head shakes, sighing. "He isn’t keeping quite well right now, so you're definitely in a better place than him."
As the gears in his brain start to turn, Jisung wonders what if...
Haha... no way, no way.
What even were the chances of that?
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It was late, much later than Jisung wanted to be awake. But he was working, and he had finally reached the point where his hands, mind, and body had all been guided by autopilot, and there was no point. His hands brushed over the detailed sketches of what appeared to be support beams. On blue paper, his colleague had drawn dimensions, measurements, and different constructor lines. Jisung scrutinized the blueprints of what looked like a tiny two-storey house and red flags went off everywhere immediately.
As he noted every single thing that they had done wrong, the blonde boy's mind raced in havoc.
Excessive and/or incorrectly placed support beams, useless overhangs, complicated or irregular geometric designs, forms that can not be built with tessellated triangles, and several other engineering nightmares were only a shortlist of stuff they had drawn impractically.
Jisung huffed, “How much longer do I have to put up with this?”
I miss when I could just draw...
Jisung was an artist before an engineer. But like every Asian household, he too preferred that he become someone else. It was unfair, but he didn’t have a say. He knew now that the choices of life shouldn’t be affected by others' interference. These are things that we carry with us lifelong. If we choose something incorrect because others are saying it, we may suffer throughout.
What does an Artist earn?
Are you going to live all your life just drawing?
How will you survive like that?
Jisung missed whipping up beautifully sketched drawings of the cityscape, with the busy crowds and teens running about. He got every wrinkle, freckle, and hair right. He would shade with his pencils in various angles, but he would still get every colour right where it needed to be.
When the boy’s hand moves over the paper it's almost like his mind is directing it, odd perhaps, but that's the way it is. His hand moves to the right spot instinctively, creating a new picture, sometimes ones he has never seen before.
Now, 7 years have passed since then. Jisung became busy excelling as a civil engineer. Should I maybe try it again?
Sighing, the blonde boy took a piece of paper and a pencil. He then began to draw more, starting with a simple circle and guidelines for the facial features.
He felt as if the lines were looking... peculiar. Whom do I draw?
Jisung sighed and, started again, pulling out another piece of paper. He repeated this loop a couple more times before it dawned on him. "I don't even know what CB97 looks like... but I keep drawing this,"
A soft silhouette of someone speaking over a mic connected to a computer device, wearing a bucket hat stared back into the black orbs of the blonde kid.
He didn't understand why.
Jisung stared in silence. Before he knew it, the boy had tears streaming down his face. He had completely gotten attached to someone all because of a podcast. Jisung did not know. He would soon have the floor covered in crumpled paper as he sobbed quietly, wondering how he would ever get sleep again.
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