3 A. M.

It wasn't exactly a 3 a.m. sweat. But it felt like it can be counted as such. An evolution of the phenomenon, maybe. It was more specific: my memory of the time I got in trouble in that typing class at Yokota High, when I got involved in that little conspiracy to use carbon copies for our big semester project. That was also the incident in which I threw away my good Christian reputation for a friend, Gary. He lost his half-assed project, and practically cried to me to claim he had it completed. Before asking me if this were true, the teacher prefaced with a speech about how I wouldn't lie. Then I lied.

Out of the dark, I wake up with this newly fresh on my mind. Maybe this is all just random stuff, like what they say dreams are made of. Yet, I cannot help wondering if my subconscious is telling me that this incident actually helped to seal my coffin. When I dropped out of law school, maybe some of my overseers took a look at the deep record to get a better look at what I am made of: should I be saved or not? And I failed again.

I just hope that I am not going to start waking up in the middle of the night every night with another old sin coming back to haunt me, like the time I got in serious trouble over that car wreck, as though I am like Dickens's poor Scrooge character, but with no happy ending in store for me. I think I got the point already. I am well-deserving of my lifetime plight. Well, maybe this is to ensure that I don't forget. But, okay, I think I really got it now. Please, no more! Do I really need to suffer worse. Can't I at least go in peace? Enjoy my chess and Solitaire. Enjoy my books. Watch the world turn in the news. Whether it's for a few weeks or a few years. Maybe I am more like Winston Smith sitting in that cafe, just spending his days drinking Victory Gin and playing chess, just waiting for that bullet to set him free. I really don't need the nightmares and 3 a.m. sweats.