Awaken to the Threat

[Catche Jagger]

((Colin McCabe: Pregame START))

Who the hell ever came up with the idea of counting sheep to get to sleep?

Was it some great “intellectual” of the past, who thought his every word ought to be inscribed in stone? Did philosopher Whatshisname get showered with gold by some king for fixing his insomnia with a simple nugget of wisdom?

Maybe it was just something moms said to their kids since the beginning of time in order to get them to shut up about not being able to sleep. “It’s not working? Then I guess you’re not focusing hard enough.”

Well, whoever it was, they were full of shit.

No matter how hard he tried, staring at the backs of his eyelids simply couldn’t lull Colin to sleep. It was just going to be one of those nights.

“Fuck it…” the young man groaned, opening his eyes to look around his room and seeing little more than he could have with them closed. The blinds of the windows were closed, shutting whatever meager light there was at this hour.

And what fucking hour was it, anyway?

Colin groped around at his bedside, before is fingers wrapped around his phone. Bringing the device to his face and pressing the lock button, he found himself briefly blinded by the screen’s brightness, before it adjusted automatically.

Displayed on the screen in large characters was Colin’s answer.

3:32am

“Aw shit.” It really was gonna be one of those nights.

How the hell was somebody supposed to sleep if they’re gonna get stressed about not getting sleep, anyway?

Unlocking his phone and hoping to find something to occupy his stubbornly overactive mind, the teenager noticed a notification pop up for his Wordpress: somebody had left a comment for his most recent post, a little piece about the troubling turn of the anime industry toward “moe” anime at the expense of more interesting productions that were more prevalent a few years back.

It wasn’t his best work, but like all his work it was sincere and essentially true.

Opening the app, Colin quickly furrowed his brow at the words that met his gaze.

“lol what kind of fag writes this shit?”

Fucking piece of shit, coming on his blog to make some low-effort post that didn’t even fucking address the arguments he’d made? Like, what kind of no life bitch do you have to be to come out with something like that.

And adding in a fucking slur? That’s low bar shit, and showed that this guy had the vocabulary of a fucking chimp. Can’t think of an inventive insult? Just say some stupid shit about minorities right?

Honestly, guys like this fucking pissed Colin off and he was ready to go off. Then his phone slipped out of his hand, bouncing off his bedding and landing with a muffled thump somewhere on the floor.

…

It was getting too late for this kind of shit anyway.

Colin slumped back in his bed, staring up at the darkened ceiling and letting out a deep sigh.

The guy’s comment wouldn’t even show up unless he approved it, anyway. There was no need to get that riled up.

It still pissed him off though, that somebody could just waltz on into his space and spew bullshit like that.

Fuck, it was late.

---

After about an hour more of trying to figure out how to best use this restless night, Colin McCabe finally drifted off to sleep.

((Colin McCabe continued in Collisions))