The Walking Dead

I wake to the sound of rock music. It is a strange sensation, to be waiting calmly in a tacit dream suddenly realize that Led Zeppelin has permeated your meditation. Realization becomes regret as I am dragged from sleep, the dream becomes reality, and I find myself grasping for life like a confused child. Most mornings I clutch it firmly, pulling myself from the tomb of pillows. However 5 hours is not forgiving, and I find myself writhing stiffly from the sepulcher. This morning, life has eluded me.
As I walk through the doors of the high school into a world of fluorescents, I can barely hold down my laughter as I se my own symptoms mirrored in the blank faces of those jostling around me. Welcome to the American High School. A veritable land of the sleep deprived dead. Several things tip me off, and my hand tightens around a sharpened pencil as I take in the facts. The average student here receives between 6 and 4 hours of sleep. In any given class 1 out of 5 students will be wearing sweatpants or pajamas. I see more coffee mugs on desks than text books. The American teenager has done the impossible. We have evolved into something new, a hybrid animal, stuck between nocturnal and diurnal, with less and less time spent daily on rest and increasingly greater time spent on schoolwork, or in more cases than one, social networking. Research tell us that to operate at their full capacity teens need a whopping 9.2 hours of sleep, almost twice as much as the average teen receives nightly. Yet somehow we still manage to crawl out of bed every morning, slog through hours of work, and in some cases even squeeze out 100's. Who knows what we could do at maximum capacity. I'm sure with a seven period schedule and two AP classes, I'll never know.

Its no wonder vampire books are the craze. Contrary to popular belief, its not because we have the chance to picture ourselves as beautiful immortals. Its because the teens in all the gossip girl books aren't nearly extreme enough. Paint me a picture of a night stalking creature, unaccountable for their actions, disconnected with the sunshiney world, and then maybe you've got a closer simile.

I entomb myself again at 10:30, satisfied that with 7 hours of peaceful rest the miracle of life will bless me tomorrow.