insomniac.

Maybe this is not jetlag. Maybe it’s just my childhood coming back to me. I should try to count all the stars.

But I counted them all already, and I still couldn’t sleep.

My parents, when I was a child, told me I was like Dennis the Menace. I think it’s because I share so many similar little stories with the kid. The story with counting the stars is one of them. I’m not a menace, though, at all not. I guess I was always telling my parents whatever I thought. Like Dennis.

Like Dennis, too, I like covering my eyes with my hair. I also always looked with amazement at how those white kids in Kuta had their hairs growing out – like, swoosh. Out. Now, my hair behave like this: on the left side of my head, they’re going in. You know, like, blew in. Like, what my mother would say as ‘tidy’. On the right side of my head, however, they go out. Like, swoosh. Out.

Anyway.

The story about counting the stars goes like this:

I couldn’t sleep. As always. I still shared a room with my brothers, and it just felt so lonely with them sleeping and with my eyes wide awake. I had no idea what I was thinking of, maybe a lot of things, but if it was, then it was a lot of things I couldn’t remember of. So I decided to end all those and got up, walked to my parents’ door and knocked.

Tok tok tok.

My parents opened their door. What is it, Tin?

I cannot sleep, I said.

Hmm. Did you try counting the stars?

Ah. Not yet. I will.

So I went back to my room. I mean, our room. I looked out the window and saw the stars there. One, two, three, four, ah … five, oh there, six, and so on. And so on. And so on.

I don’t remember how many of them all were. But I counted them all.

So I went back to my parents’ door and knocked.

Tok tok tok.

Have you counted the stars? They asked.

Yes, I did. I said.

I don’t remember what happened afterwards.

See, that’s the problem. If I would remember, I wouldn’t be insomniac anymore now.

Maybe I should just find a boyfriend.