The Reluctant Zombie

I think we can all agree that nights are scarier than days. Creepy things tend to happen more often at night. People and beasts of ill intent prowl in greater numbers, and things that we believe do not exist in the light of day become much more real.

Because we know, in our heart of hearts, that good people, people like us, sleep at night. It is the criminal, the animal, and the Unnatural Thing that do their wicked business in the dead of night.

So I wonder, as I shuffle about my house at three in the morning, which of those three things I am.

I have recently entered into one of my chronic periods of insomnia, so I spend about as much time at home nightwalking as I do in full light cavorting with my wife and son. My pattern tends to be sleeping from 12-2, shambling in the dark from 2-5, sleeping again from 5-7. There are variations, but I believe this generally qualifies me as a Creature of the Night.

Which is a shame, because I would prefer to be sleeping. It seems a waste just to sit on the kitchen floor in full darkness waiting to get tired, occasionally staring out the windows and idly scratching at the walls. There's nothing good on TV during those hours, and even if there was, I wouldn't want to turn up the volume for fear I would wake my wife and son. And I don't really want to start any truly engaging activity, like fighting crime on the rooftops or baking a pie. It would just wake me up for good, and then I wouldn't get any sleep.

Oh, I suppose I could take sleeping pills, but I don't want to dull my readiness. Someone needs to be up when that Unnatural Thing inevitably crawls into our house.

You know, to hit it with a bat or something.