Sleep Walking the Walk of Life

"Azure , when she was a baby slept off as soon as she got into the car", I overheard my mum say.

I smirked, thought of the many times I had heard that, not too long ago

"Azure still sleeps off as soon as she is put into the car" , I mumbled to myself.

~ JUMP SCENE ~

"Is that a new painting on the wall? " I asked my pal

"NO"

"How the heck did I never see this before?"

"Must have slept through it" , we said in unison

We broke into peals of laughter. Very Funny.

Azure became the butt of all jokes sleepy. Be it sleep talking for a "M&M Candy" breakfast in bed, being woken up in the middle of a guided tour - WAKE UP! Look around , you're on vacation or never being able to recognise what part of the city it is, even after having driven around the place a million times (all while in slumberland!)

Thirty something years of a daze. Some crystal clear moments of a beautiful dream like quality, the rest of it a blur. The sleep over the last few years gradually grew to become an issue . I never did decipher the subtle signs, the fact that my life was headed to becoming somewhat mechanical & pointless.

And while I sleep walked to the edge of the cliff, Miss life smacked another lesson into my face.

" Love sleeping with your eyes open, don't you?"

"No more subtleties then"

"Here, sleep , sleep and sleep some more until you decide to wake up!

Azure was cursed to stay in slumberland, until she decided to take the reins of her life in her own hands and tread forward with her eyes wide open.

Ever noticed, if you are allowed an addiction, sans guilt, you eventually do get over it!? Become more responsible about it?

It is ingrained in me, testing the boundaries, wanting to do more, wanting to do exactly what the other person said not to do or said I cannot do. More the restrictions around something , greater the thrills of putting it as an accomplishment on the records.

All that was accomplishment once, did not resonate with Azure anymore. It all seemed like it was someone else's, and the one thing she had become good at, "Sleep Walking", was now being forced upon her in all obviousness. Not something she liked very much.

But then, a curse is a curse, and sleep I would have to. There is no kiss from a handsome prince that would bring me to life this time. I would have to be my own true love now, and bring me back from the dead.

So I slept and I slept for many years thereafter, with an air of dark around me.

How could Azure awaken herself from death like slumber? Especially, someone who slept through her waking hours, how would she ever awaken in her sleep?

I have always loved the loop holes in fairy tales. There is always a way to break the curse. A fairy godmother, the prince or a toad. Always the means available when you have a purpose in mind. The portal to the happy ever after. Azure got her share of the loop hole too. Azure got her dreams.

So as I slept, my dreams came visiting, and every dream that came by awakened me some more. The dreams that I never could recall once, when they woke me up, now spoke to me as I slept. I saw the minutest detail of everything it showed me, my own personal bioscope to the world of the animate.

Everyday, Azure saw the picture a little clearer than the day before, everyday she focused some more. The day came soon enough when she saw it all crystal clear in her head. She finally saw what she wanted to see, and not the picture tinted by someone elses expectation or the urge to prove someone wrong.

I finally found the NOW, where I belong and could stay inanimate no more. I woke up to a beautiful dream, that was a dream no more, never to sleep walk again.