Sleepless Story

The elevator door pinged open and I stepped out onto the lobby. Darkness greeted me, except for an illuminated spot by the counter. The only sound that pierced the silence was the multiple tap of fingers on a keyboard. The attendant on the front desk glanced up at me and flashed a wide smile, “Can I help you ma’am?”

“Do you have still water? I’d like one up on my room.”

A frown crinkled his forehead as he glanced at the clock on the wall. 3.45am. “The room service is closed, ma’am.”

I’m not a ma’am. In the grogginess of my brain, the snooty remark my brain told me made me chuckle inside. Instead I merely nodded. “I’m having problems sleeping, can I stay here for a moment?”

He smiled sympathetically. “You may treat this place like your own home, ma’am.”

After mumbling a grateful reply, I wandered over to a plush sofa by the window. Outside the frosty glass, the cold and wintry night has driven every soul – drunken or sober – out of the cobbled streets. In the distance, I could make out the soft twinkle of stars above Lake Como, glittering like fireflies. Maybe I was hallucinating…that’s what happens when it is the second time you are unable to sleep in a foreign land. Heaving a sigh, I shrugged out of my jacket and nestled my chin on my hand, gazing into the night.

A sudden rattle jolted me out of my reverie, and my sole companion for the moment approached me, pushing a cart laden with cups, saucers and jugs. “I got this from the kitchen for you ma’am. Have some tea and biscuits, perhaps you might feel better,” he said cheerfully, beckoning me closer.

A few minutes later, with a cup of chamomile tea and a packet of biscuits, as well as a book I packed hastily in my bid to escape my four-walled hotel room, I was cosily ensconced in my little corner. Thoughts drifted in and out of my mind: of my family members whom I’m homesick for, of the days I have locked myself in a strict routine and of the joys of living in this world. Maybe it was destined to be that sleep eluded me that night in Lake Como, because within an hour of contemplative silence, all the weariness in my body – collected from months of stress – dissipated into the thin air by the time I take the last sip of my tea.