He shifted again on the bed.
It was useless. Sleep would not come.
He lay there, frustration mounting every second until he roughly threw off the covers, thrust his feet into the closest pair of shoes, and made his way outside. He took a large gulp of the summer night air and held it. He looked to the stars as if pleading for help, but was met only with clouds blackened by the night. He exhaled forcefully and began walking slowly away from the house. After a moment, he changed direction, walking a little faster. A few moments more and he changed direction again, and again and again every few minutes, striding faster and faster at each aimless turn until he was sprinting.
When his legs would take him no further, he stumbled and collapsed to the ground at the top of a grassy hill. He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes, his chest heaving and his blood pounding in his ears. He lay there for a while, a long while, until his breathing slowed to steady, even falls. Then his eyes shot open with a fury. He sprang to his feet and stomped around in wide, uneven circles. Why, why could his thoughts not leave him in peace! And then he was running again, running to nowhere with vague hopes of finding some shred of quiet.
Some minutes later (or was it hours?), he found himself back on the hilltop. He dropped unceremoniously to the ground and started pounding it with his fists, then tearing out grass, then pounding it again. He sat up, caged his head in his hands, and nearly dug his nails into the skin. Letting out a silent scream of frustration, he threw himself back against the ground.
He didn't think he fell asleep, but in no time at all, he noticed that the now cloud-free sky had taken on a lighter shade, and he heard birds calling from the forest line a ways back. At that particular moment, the high, cheerful trills seemed mocking, reminding him of all the happiness in the world that he didn't have. 'It isn't right,' he thought, 'for humankind to be so intelligent and yet not know how to be happy.' His thoughts grew darker as the sky lightened.
Suddenly, he blinked as a bright red pinprick of light pulled his attention away from his self-pity and self-loathing. The sun was coming up. He scowled and tried to go back to his hateful thoughts... but found that he could not look away. In fact, as he glared at its slow, creeping ascent, he found himself completely unable to focus on the bitter complaints and shouts of despair ringing in his mind. So slow... did the sun always rise this slowly? His mind, being strangely cut off from the anger and frustration he felt so vividly just moments before, drifted away from all thoughts until he had none. Then, gradually, there formed questions about his troubles, directed at himself, often beginning with "why". Answers formed with them, simply and easily. The questions he had asked himself repeatedly throughout the night returned, but without their tone of malice. They were answered, too. Not by lies crafted in self-defense, but by the truth, hard and heavy, yet welcome and refreshing.
It seemed to this man that as the sun rose, so lifted a curtain from his mind to show him what he could not, or perhaps would not, see or comprehend before. When its blinding brightness finally pushed free of the horizon to warm his face and caress his skin, an almost tangible understanding and peace settled over him like a blanket. Finally becoming aware of his overwhelming weariness in mind and body, he slept.
