A discomfort pulls me into the in between. The cool darkness obscures the time and my bladder drives the moment. I roll around in hopes to find a new position to relieve the pressure enough to drift back to sleep.

A false comfort accompanies me in bed, my body relaxes and my brain forgets.

It is not enough.

My entirety remembers.

Peeved, I stumble out of bed and follow the amber glow emanating from the night light in the bathroom.

I look down the hallway to see the time on the microwave’s clock before stepping into the bathroom. As predicted, I wonder why I always look, it’s always the same: 00:00.

The bathroom’s nightlight allows me to keep the overhead light and the onerous bathroom fan off. Turning either on would guarantee that I would not sleep.

Washing my hands I notice this tiny moth sitting on the nightlight. It’s there every night. It caught the light and sits on it. What more is there to do?

I look at the microwave as I exit the bathroom: 00:00.

It feels silly to only notice when my bladder wakes me up well before my alarm. I could set it, maybe even turn it off, but the only time I think of this is during a morning bathroom jaunt. During the day, the clock is washed out with light from the door to the yard. Why the manufacturer thought that was a helpful reminder to set the clock is beyond me, the digits don’t even blink! I shake my head to see if the thoughts fall out of my ears.

I reach the bed and allow myself to fall into it and the thought, “Go back to sleep,” repeats.

The gentle breeze from the ceiling fan and the light comforter create a nice balance. My mind and body can relax.

A thought sneaks in, “Is there a reasonable gap before my alarm goes off?“

I dismiss it, it won’t matter. Even an hour would be better than nothing. My back melts into the bed, then my legs, then my shoulders. I am no longer listening to my eyes, a curtain of darkness sets the scene. The edge of the dream I was having begins to flicker into view. The back of my head sinks further into the pillow. The bed nestles my body into a floating feeling.

“At least an hour of sleep,” pops into my head.

The flickers give way to the cool darkness of the room, my eyes have opened. I’ve lost the battle. The dam has broken and now a flood of questions starts to run through my head. Not a single question has time for an answer or to be understood. I can feel my body tell my brain to knock it off, but the brain convinces the body being this rested is probably not worth it as the alarm is about to go off.

I squint to look at my phone, I feel the defeat disappear: 3:33. More than enough.

First hand stories of Bigfoot are one of my favorite ways to drift back to sleep. A silly mystery to short circuit the brain. It is a bonus for the tired mind if the episode lacks my personal favorite Bigfoot tropes: mind speak, infrasound, or strange lights. Once the basis of the encounter has been laid out, the episode collapses into a black hole of time, as the voices retell the encounter in slightly modified ways.

This morning, someone stumbles upon a family of Bigfoot looking for bugs under rocks. The voices repeat and resolve as a numbing mumble, a colored noise yet to be discovered.

“Join us,” a voice cuts through the podcast.