Waking up at 1:34 am and writing about nothing

Here's the funny thing.

I woke up at 1:43 this morning.

I went straight to pee.

I drank two cups of water.

I returned to bed and suddenly felt the urge to write. 

Lying on my bed, and armed with my Samsung Note 2 in both hands, I started tapping the miniature keyboard.

Picture this, two nervous thumbs busy putting words together like stringing beads into a long dangling thread that stretches out to nowhere.

One word at a time, in a thread of uncharted thought, I wrote as if in a deep spell.

Subject matter?

I decided to write about nothing. Yes, you heard me.

I was writing with no aim in mind.

It was a lazy, mindless stroll in the cerebral blank-space of my mind.

Tabula rasa was very much the theme.

I decided to catch the first thought that materializes in my half-groggy head.

Like a retiree on fly fishing, I threw the bait far and wide, and at an angle, and then just before it struck the water surface of impromptu thoughts, I wickedly tarik it back to taunt the fishes to bite the bait.

I was 
literally standing out there on a limb angling for ideas.

Then, just when all seemed too calm and lost, the first thought came in on an innocent swim by and bit the bait. 

My busy thumbs then reeled in the catch and I completed a string of beads about the stillness of the night.

Yes, there is much to write about concerning the stillness of the night.

If you ever bothered to pay attention, and let your imagination take a stab in the dark, the stillness of the night as a literature of interest can lead you 
into the enchanted garden of revealing quietness.

So, unbidden, I took the uncharted plunge into nothingness.

I imagined the thousands of people, young and old, sleeping in unscripted positions, sprawling out on all limbs, and stretching in sports-like freeze-frames.

I imagined one child no older than six frozen in a position of a marathoner in her flowery pjs.

I imagined another child, this time a teenager, planking facedown, with his body straightened like an icicle pop.

Then another freeze-
frame emerged in my mind.

It was a couple half naked wrestling on the bed in a heated embrace.

But their faces registered no obvious aggression.

One was smiling, she appeared triumphant, and the other had his mouth drooling as if grasping for air.

Now the winner of that bedside wrestling match was readily discernible.

Still under the covers of nocturnal stillness, I imagined a strange old man struggling in his bed.

He was providing me with a series of quick motion shots in successive 
time intervals.

One moment he appeared to be drowning in an ocean, hands flailing and legs kicking wildly.

In another moment he appeared to be performing some sort of yoga breathing exercises, with palms meeting above head and then in between his thighs.

Still another moment caught him in a supine position, with one hand on his forehead and the other on his side.

He appeared to be contemplating the next move in a grandmaster chess competition.

At this time, I glanced at my
 bedroom clock and I realized an hour had already passed since I first started writing.

I had been lying on my bed, half awake, writing for an hour with my two busy thumbs pounding away on my Samsung Note 2, like kneading dough with just two active fat digits.

Just when I was about to rest those thumbs and call it a night or morning, another idea bit the bait.

It was wholly unexpected.

The catch was a red herring.

My mind went on an off-tangent expedition into empty open space and the earth
 gradually came into full Technicolor view.

From my vantage point, I soaked up the most amazing sight.

I saw the dichotomy of night and day, activity and inactivity, sleep and awakeness, in a harmonizing contrast revealing how the earth was divided.

It was an amazing sight because I imagined the peopled earth running an unrelenting baton race in a 2 x 400 meters global relay.

And the transferring of the baton of humanity was at the prime meridian point between the
 two hemispheres just before the night passes over to the day and the day passes over to the night.

It was a relay of wondrous metaphorical cooperation as the setting sun dutifully passes the baton over to the early dawn to keep the human race going.

I imagined that this race has been going on and on for millenniums and it had never stopped; not even for a water break.

Humanity has in fact been running faithfully, building civilization from scratch, and taking one small rotational degree at a time.

I further 
imagined that this race would go on into the future as its neighboring planets cheer brother earth on, celebrating every baton transfer, and admiring from their lonely interstellar orbit the shared destiny between the racing populations of the two hemispheric halves.

At this inflective point, I quietly mused, 

"Has humanity ever considered this amazing picture from the floating space where I am standing? 

If they had, and if they were as inspired as I am feeling 
right now, that is, the incredible affinity and cooperation between the people on earth regardless of race, language, and religion, will they still view each other as different and with contempt? 

Or will they view each other as one whole, indivisible and united, working or running towards a common goal, and living as a global family? 

If so, shouldn't we live in peace and pass on to our children and their children's children this baton of hope and shared destiny?"

Mm...food for thought I guess.

Now, looking at 
the clock for the second time, another hour had passed, and I think it's really time for me to retire those fat thumbs.

I recoiled my fishing rod, kept the bait, took one last look at my catch for the night, and then put aside my Samsung Note 2, and went to sleep.

My last thought before I fell into slumber land was, "I think I'll post this in the morning."

Cheerz.

* Image taken from "www.layoutsparks.com".