Sleepless nights- A Conversation with my brain

Me: I’ve been trying for almost a couple of hours, but I still can’t sleep. I think I’m in love.

My Brain: Stop kidding yourself, girl. It’s because you slept for four hours in the noon.

Me: I still have five hours of sleep left. Why don’t you stop thinking so much and let me sleep?

My Brain: That’s because you have so much to do. How about we start drafting that apology letter?

Me(baffled): What apology letter? I didn’t do anything wrong.

My Brain: You did. It’s Tuesday and well, you didn’t even visit WordPress on Sunday, let alone write something. And don’t tell me you’re planning to get away with a cheesy ‘I’m sorry I was too busy’ this time. We need to write a proper apology letter.

Me: That would make it all the worse. An apology letter would require an entire post and the readers would think that I’m simply trying to stick to my weekly-post rule even when I can’t think of anything. I’ll simply tell them in a couple of sentences how I couldn’t post as I was at City Montessori School from 2nd to 7th August for Quest, a festival of scientific international competitions.

My Brain: I have an idea. Why don’t you write about your experiences at Quest?

Me: Pfft. In case you forgot, your intelligence, mine is not a lifestyle blog. You have to think of something, and do not tell me to continue Through the Woods. There needs to be variety on my blog.

My Brain: Fine, fine. I’ll think of something later. For now, let’s attend to something more important. We’ll try learning Despacito from memory- without looking at the lyrics. How does that sound to you?

Me: Not in the least bit exciting. You don’t know Spanish. It’ll take a day to learn that song if we sing along while reading the lyrics. From memory, it’ll take forever. Hell, you don’t remember the lyrics. ‘Pasito a pasito, suave, suavecito, no vamo pegando poquito a poquito’ and ‘tus lugares favorito- favorito, favorito baby’ are all that you can recall.

My Brain: Who says I don’t remember? Listen- Des-pah-cito, cattle recipe r2 ketchup despacito-

Me: What? It’s not ‘cattle recipe r2 ketchup despacito’, I’m sure it’s something else.

My Brain: Well, you watched this Ryan Higa video once and this was the trick to learning the chorus of the song easily. Admit it, you learnt the first half of the chorus with Ryan’s help.

Me (bites tongue): Um… yeah, that’s true but still, that punny dub of Ryan’s can only help us learn the chorus. What’re you gonna do about the rest of the song?

My Brain: You know what, hang Despacito. Let’s hum a song you and I learnt recently- Talking to Myself- the one that made you like Linkin Park.

Me: You sing that one all day. Do you wanna waste my night as well? Let. Me. Sleep.

My Brain (singing): Tell me what I gotta do, there’s no getting through to you, the lights are on but nobody’s home-

Me(singing): The lights are off so why don’t you doze.

My Brain: Damn it, girl. You ruined my flow.

Me: Just the way you’re ruining my sleep. We need to get up at six tomorrow for school.

My Brain: Ah, school rings a bell.

Me: Bad pun, Brain.

My Brain: Wasn’t intended to be. What I meant was, let’s plan conversations to have with people at school, so that you’re not sitting in a corner with your mouth zipped all day.

Me: No use. The other person will probably ruin the damn script. One thing I don’t understand is, why do you go blank when I’m talking to people and come up with witty and interesting replies when I don’t? What’s your problem?

My Brain: The problem is all yours. You’re a blasted introvert.

Me: Nope. I’m just socially selective. Most people in class have nothing to talk about except romantic affairs between this girl and that boy or their stupid, weekly-changing crushes. The only person I usually talk to in class is Aditya the Science nerd, and he sits at the far end so I’m quiet most of the day. The problem is, all the interesting people are in Section B. I don’t know what those idiot authorities were thinking, putting me in A when they were shuffling students in ninth grade.

My Brain: Get over it, already. You’re in class tenth now.

Me: I’m not complaining. I’ve gotten used to it now. I’m simply stating the facts.

My Brain: Talking about facts, why don’t we revise those theorems for tomorrow’s class test? The ratio of areas of similar triangles is equal to the ratio of their corresponding sides-

Me(correcting): Squares of their corresponding sides, you dunderhead. Don’t confuse me now. I’ve revised beautifully for the test, and if you don’t disconcert me, I’m totally going to ace it. Now sleep.

My Brain: Ah, sleep. What an interesting topic to discuss on. I can never remember which one’s the dreamless sleep- REM or non-REM?

Me: And what makes you think I do? You’re the one who does the memorising. REM or non-REM, I don’t care, but I need sleep.

My Brain: Don’t you remember that old saying- Aaraam haraam hai-rest is disadvantageous?

Me: You know I disagree with those old wive’s words. Rest is the most important thing in the world.

My Brain: ‘Old wives words’? How I love idioms. And similes. And metaphors. It’s a pity how the only simile we find in use today is ‘as f***’. If something’s good, people say ‘awesome A.F.’. If something’s bad, they say ‘awful A.F.’. What a world of hypocrites.

Me: I don’t disagree, hypocrisy is something found in abundance in the society. But you need to reserve those intellectual discussions for the day. I’ll just count sheep and try to sleep.

My Brain: Ah, poetry- the spontaneous flow of powerful thoughts, as Wordsworth so rightly said-

Me(sighing): There you go again.