Somnolence
She had never been a sound sleeper. There was a particular restlessness that followed her all her life. Not quite insomnia, or at least not officially diagnosed as such, but a kind of stirring of the spirit. It could manifest as exuberance during the waking hours, and it was in those seasons that it felt almost like a superpower. The ability to drink deeper from the chalice of vitality, to burn the candle twice as fast and still have enough wick to spare. She'd just come off a stint of several months-worth of night shifts, of vastly higher pay bartered for some mild lapse of sanity. Most probably couldn't have handled it, but not her. The night owl. A nocturnal specimen more comfortable on that side of the earth's rotation. But once she shifted back to a less vampiric schedule her sleeping problems intensified. It was always the monotony that got to her. The silence that amplifies every minute disturbance like the surface of the water rippling, lingering after. Fans or ambi...