The Sleepless Night
Author’s Note: This is a short piece I wrote one night after I had a hard time falling asleep. It’s all exactly as it happened, though it’s told in a narrative form that makes it sound far more dramatic than it actually was.
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The room was dark, save for the dim light that was coming in from the outside. The glow of the city’s numerous lights illuminated the surrounding atmosphere, making it appear lighter than it should be for this time of night. It was a cold glow that bathed the room and it’s contents in a faded, grayish hue as it filtered through the blinds.
He laid there quietly on his stomach, staring blankly at the window as he examined the shadows painted on the blinds by the large bush that grew just outside. To his sleepless eyes, It appeared as though it were some random splatter of black paint, slathered upon a canvas by a drunken artist, or an ink spot used to delve into the psyche of a disturbed mind.
It was 1 a.m., and the warm embrace of sleep would just not come to him on this particular evening. His eyes wandered about the room as his body lay sprawled out upon the bed, face down with his head turned sideways on the tightly folded pillow and one leg straight with the other bent so that just his knee was just hanging over the edge. His arm hung over the side of the bed where his fingers dragged lazily along the floor as he moved his hand in a nervous swing, scraping his nails along the carpet back and forth in a rhythmic motion near the two dog toys that he had only moments ago laid to rest there after his young border collie had finally fallen asleep beside him.
Though they were several inches away, he began to move his hand forward just slightly, trying to gauge the distance between his fingers and the toys. They were distant enough that it was unlikely that he would actually come into contact with them through his normal movements, and yet their nearness bothered him to the point that he finally felt the need to move them a bit farther away, which he eventually did. There, now that that was settled, he could go back to staring at the window.
The fan, which he kept next to the bed to keep him cool at night, was blowing with its usual, droning hum. He always found comfort in this sound, and he’d become quite dependent on having some sort of a droning noise such as the fan or a hair dryer (in the rare cases that he found himself to be cold), in order to fall asleep. Sleep never came easily or lasted for very long without it.
This inherent need of his was often a huge source of consternation for his wife, as she would complain endlessly about how the fan always made her cold and kept her from sleeping. The dog however absolutely adored the fan, and would often sleep directly in front of it, on his back with his legs up in the air, as border collies often do. Having the dog laying next to him the way he often did made it quite difficult to turn over in the night, and more often than not led to waking up sore in the morning. Still, his love for his dog was such that he suffered through it without complaint. Tonight however, the dog was sleeping happily between them, and the man had all the room he wanted to sprawl out languidly. Unfortunately however, the sleep would just not come to him, no matter how desperately he tried to reach out to it. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, but soon enough he once again found himself staring blankly at the shadows on the blinds.
His lips slowly parted, and after a few lengthy moments he quickly sucked back the saliva that had collected near the corner of his mouth, lest it escape and fall to his pillow, just as it had done so many times before while he was sleeping.
His eyes wandered the room again, finally falling upon the fan that was steadily blowing next to him. Reaching out, he slowly turned the fan, which had heretofore been facing his legs and feet, so that it was now blowing more onto his upper body where it would do a far better job of keeping him cool. Fortunately his wife was already asleep, so hopefully she wouldn’t wake up and complain about the cold again.
Minutes passed, each one feeling as though it took hours to tick away. It always felt like this when he would just lay there quietly, trying to still his mind as he laid there in the darkness.
“So, what now?” he thought to himself.
As the cool, gentle brushes of the fan’s air passed over him, it was becoming more and more uncomfortable to lay there in the position he was in. Unfortunately, he knew that turning over wouldn’t provide much relief. The simple fact was that he wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep.
A few more minutes passed. His eyes wandered about the room and his thoughts suddenly turned to just how he would describe this scene if he were to write it all down, and what would be the point of it if he did? Did it even matter? Perhaps once he’d written it all down, he would finally be able to fall asleep. After all, it was worth a shot. Wasn’t it?
I’ll be smoking my pipe tonight…
Yes, it’s true. I am an author who smokes a pipe. Now I just need a leather bomber jacket, an adventurer’s hat and a bottle of whiskey and I’ll have finally achieved my lifelong goal of turning myself into a great big ol’ stereotype. In all seriousness though, I started smoking a pipe when I was in my early twenties. I smoked for a while, but then stopped doing it for years before I started smoking the occasional cigar once in a while, mostly because it was less work and took less attention, but there was always something about pipe smoking that for me was far more special than smoking a cigar will ever be. Now mind you, that’s not to put down cigars at all. I really enjoy a good cigar, but it’s not a pipe, and it never will be.
So why is smoking a pipe so special? Well, for one thing, there’s a massive variety of tobacco blends to choose from that are all within a certain price range of one another, whereas with cigars you can go from very cheap to mortgage the house expensive. That’s an exaggeration of course, but some cigars are extremely spendy for just one smoke. For around $40 I can get a pound of one of my favorite blends of pipe tobacco and smoke on that for quite some time before I ever even have to think about buying more.
Then there’s the pipes themselves. There are a wide variety of shapes and styles of pipes. Some are super fancy, some are more plain, some are made from corncobs, meerschaum, gourd, pear or other woods, though the vast majority of wood pipes are made of briar. Because there are so many different styles and makers of pipes, collecting them can become a hobby in and of itself.
The almost ritualistic nature of pipe smoking is what appeals to me the most however, and what makes it so completely relaxing. You load the bowl in a very specific way, light it, tamp it, and then if necessary, you light it again and go from there. The experienced and attentive pipe smoker can get through an entire bowl on a single light. The more casual pipe smoker may need to relight it several times as he smokes his way down the bowl, simply because unlike cigarettes, and somewhat unlike cigars, pipes will go out on you if you go too long in between draws. When you’re done smoking, you clean the bowl and the stem in a very specific way as well to complete the ritual.
The room note of a good pipe tobacco will allow you to enjoy the smoke long after it’s over. Unlike cigarettes, and unlike some cigars, the room note of various pipe tobaccos can be absolutely enchanting. To be fair however, there are some blends that leave a room note that’s absolutely ghastly. For instance, I had a hazelnut blend that I absolutely abhor. The room note it leaves behind isn’t horrific, but it isn’t overly pleasant either. If I were to compare it to anything, I would say it leaves the room smelling much like a bowling alley from the 1970s.
You find the special, wonderful smelling blends through trial and error, just as you do with the not so pleasant ones. I smoke blends from Milan Tobacconists almost exclusively, and I’ve found a wide variety of blends from them that are absolutely wonderful. My two favorites at the moment are Evening Stroll and Sunset Rum, which is the one I’ll be smoking this evening as I contemplate the next scene in my latest book and how I want it to play out.
The anti-tobacco fascists without exception use tobacco as a general term. The truth however is that there’s a huge difference between cigarettes, which are meant to be inhaled, and cigar and pipe tobacco, which is not. The processing of cigar and pipe tobacco as compared to cigarette tobacco is also vastly different. Pipe and cigar tobaccos are far cleaner and more natural than cigarette tobacco. So not only are they cleaner and less damaging, but because they’re not inhaled, you can smoke them in relative safety. A well known YouTuber recently asked his doctor about smoking a pipe occasionally, and he was told that it was just fine, and that he’d likely never encounter any negative effects from it. That’s another thing about pipes and cigars, is that typically they’re an occasional smoke rather than an all day one, as you see with cigarette smokers. Even frequent pipe smokers will likely not smoke more than twice a day at the most. Compare that with a pack a day smoker who’s sucking all that smoke into his lungs.
In the end though, I smoke a pipe for one specific reason that far outweighs any of the others. I enjoy it, and that’s the only reason that really matters.
“A pipe is the fountain of contemplation, the source of pleasure, the companion of the wise; and the man who smokes, thinks like a philosopher and acts like a Samaritan.”
-Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
By Duane • Uncategorized 0