The mind is a powerful thing indeed.  You wanna hear a song?  Just remember it.  You wanna score the goal that wins the Stanley Cup?  Just use your imagination.  Left your laptop at home while you’re on the road and can’t find anything good to beat off to?  Just picture your grade one teacher all greased up and horny.  Don’t feel like having a healthy night’s sleep?  Just put your life’s worries, complications, frustrations and inadequacies on repeat in your head and trust me, there won’t be any sleep happening. 

Our oh-so-powerful brains are what separate us from the beasts. 

My own brain isn’t any different than yours.  It can run rampant and make me lose sleep just like you.  It haunts and tortures me every single fucking night playing these infinitely chaotic and apocalyptic scenarios before my eyes like a personal horror film the devil would perform for me in Hell.

On a night as typical as any other, a tiny spider was slowly inching its way into a dark corner on my stucco-encrusted ceiling of my bedroom.  I watched him until he disappeared into the darkness. 

I named him Merlin.

At the time I envied Merlin’s simple, miraculous life.  Eat, sleep, reproduce and survive.  A spider will never stop and wonder if it’s too skinny.  A spider will never fear that it’s turning into its Father.  A spider will never become suicidal.  However, a spider will defy gravity and crawl on the fucking ceiling.  A spider will spin super strong silk webs in beautiful design to catch its prey.  A spider will bite me and transfer its abilities to me and help me become a super hero.

Okay, that last part is bullshit.  But I wondered if a spider will ever lose sleep like I do.

I slowly rolled to the edge of the bed and let myself teeter off.  I picked myself up and sat on the corner of the bed closest to the now invisible spider.  I looked back up at the ceiling to see if I can see it again but it looked like it had moved on with its life without me.