N I G H T || D A Y @midnight-in-day - Tumblr Blog

Friday morning starts early in the morning, preparing for a six hour long hike around the mountains.

It begins with a fresh disaster an hour in, when I realize I had forgotten to take my iron pill, and any incline makes my head pound.

After some time, we come out on steady ground, and Owen and I trail behind, distracted every few minutes by the bounties of crystals that line the mountain side.

The rest of the group is on their second round of San Pedro (it had been on the stove for days preparing for this, stinking up the house to the point of nausea), and Owen and I are completely clean.

We eventually join the rest of the group in a break, only to be left behind again when we try (and fail) to climb a particularly smooth, steep rockface and our fear of heights kicks in.

The last stop is the second cave - a beautiful, hidden cave with small water pools. We stay there for a bit before making out leave, and somehow make it home first - not without Owen soaking me in the last of the drinking water, getting me back from pouring water on his crotch earlier on.

We collapse after the hike, too exhausted to even shower, watch the Conjuring, begin watching Ready Player One, before Daimon knocks on my window and asks us to lock the house up.

Apparently, we're all alone or a couple of hundred meters, and there are potential dangers lurking in the night time undergrowth.

I introduce him to Little Nightmares, by far my favourite horror game, and when both of us are on the verge of sleep he returns to his room.

- Artemis is My Spirit Animal, In the Middle of Nowhere

Thursday is a public holiday, which means no school, which means a whole day of being a lazy ass.

After convincing myself I'm safe, Owen and I get put to work on the chickens, and we have a blast naming them, losing the chick, and letting another two escape.

We name the chick Nugget, a black pullet Void, and the one that kept escaping, of course, we named Ginger.

Eventually we found them all up, find Nugget, fix their nesting boxes and water, and make our way inside.

We basically watch movies the entire day, me gorging myself on excess sugar and as much junk as I can stomach.

I start watching the Fifth Wave, and after five minutes give up on taking the film seriously. I mean who, in the entire ending world, wears perfect goth makeup and has nails that look like they costed a fortune at the nail salon? Hell, mine chip if I switch the light on, let alone swinging an assault rifle in fifty different directions in seconds.

We watch the Bye Bye Man, and god damnit was I severely disappointed that the origin was not revealed. How did he come to exist, this Bye Bye Man? Apparently, I'm not allowed to know.

I'm halfway between sleep and consciousness for most of the evening before Owen finds out that I haven't actually watched Avatar (tla), Black Clover, Naruto, or Seven Deadly Sins.

We begin watching Seven Deadly Sins.

I fall asleep on the second episode.

- I May be a Swine but at Least I'm Cultured, In the Middle of Nowhere

I plug my phone in, shower, and visit my father.

I make a typical English Breakfast (bacon, eggs, bean on toast and mushrooms) for the both of us. He puts on the news. I leave.

I hate the news.

Cleaning my room takes all morning, and it's not my items that make up the mess - I spent twenty minutes beating a carpet with a broom without a single change on the amount of dust that was pouring from the thick material.

By the time most of my things are packed up, Owen has finished his school work and we lounge about on the veranda, cleaning crystals for the afternoon.

It's a beautiful, humid day that buzzes with hidden activity, and the lethargy of home is slowly fading.

Tracey visits us outside, informs us of the presence of a multitude of strawberries and a pot of lumpy but delicious chocolate sauce.

I ask her about moving into the guest bedroom, she gives us the thumbs up, and Owen and I make three trips between the guest house and the main house, moving my belongings in.

I clean up my toiletries, transferring them to the bathroom (Owen pulls out his cologne and shoves it next to my items, commenting that the bathroom barely looks his anymore because of the amount of pink - which was hilarious, because there was a total of one pink product).

I start sorting out my cupboard, get distracted hallway through, and abandon the task.

Owen and I get called to set the table. Anxiety kicks in immediately, and I struggle swallowing the meal (stuffed peppers, spinach pie and salad - each dish a delicacy to me).

However, nothing happens. No screaming. No nausea. No trauma.

It leaves me feeling empty.

I thank them for the dinner, excuse myself, and Owen and I recline to his room to watch Yuri!!! On Ice (provided by a forty-five minute call with my best friend) We make it to the fifth episode before I fall asleep.

The nightmares are worse than usual.

I dreamt of Cetric that night. I was back in the Woods, back in my beautiful but restricting clothing, but this time I was in my current body.

He was towering over me, and he looked just like Lucas in that sick way of his, in the way he is his twin, in the way he moves, but not in the way I am terrified of him.

He put his hand on my abdomen, and in his cold, dead voice he tells me - have you forgotten me already? Forward my greetings to Zila.

I wake up delirious, and every door leads back to That Place, and even the silence screeches.

I can remember three names - Lucas, Zila, and my own. My mind refuses to remember who Cetric was, and it takes me an hour to remember him and what he did to Zila and I.

If it weren't for Zila, I wouldn't have been able to hold my screams in.

I go to sleep when the terror fades and the mirrors are covered.

Waking up takes me an hour to speak.

- Nightmares, In the Middle of Nowhere

In the dream, I was walking to what is called Raven's Nest (a cabin on the farm owned by a Hollywood star whose name I shall omit). Lucas was standing next to the shack behind my room, and he was staring at me with just about every ounce of jealous yandere in his expression he could muster.

I tried walking to him, but tripped, and as I fell; I woke up, cold.

I hate the cold.

I layered on the clothing in the spring heat, heat I would normally wear a loose shirt and shorts in, but today nothing could make me warm.

I had breakfast with my father, fetch my computer, and lock my door.

The door doesn't unlock again, and a cold dread seeps through me, and I tell Chris with heavy apologizing.

The chaos followed me like the wind did.

I couldn't concentrate during school. I remember home, and what would have happened if I was at home, and when Chris offers me porridge I think it's a test, and decline. At home, if I was in trouble, I couldn't eat out of stressed nausea.

I dissociate, have a full-blown panic attack that hurts more than hell - hurts like my heart is being ripped out, hurts like I can't breathe, hurts like I can't see - and when it's over, I'm left crying, and no one is around to witness it, and I'm grateful for that.

I text my best friend. Tell her about the dream. She's scared for me. I'm scared too, but more excited. I tested something, and was pleased with the results.

See - Papa and I have a theory that a way to draw Lucas out of hiding is to make him jealous, and if the previous night with Owen drew him out that easily, the theory might very well be true.

However... I felt anger from him. Anger I've never felt before. Lucas is angry, so angry, and it's directed towards me. Maybe if I play on this anger of his, he'll finally come out of hiding. This is what my best friend is scared of - that I'll hurt myself dancing with the devil.

After school, I tell Owen about the dream and he gives me a funny look and says, "You two have a really weird relationship." I remind him softly that I devastated existence because of Lucas. He doesn't reply.

We go for a walk. We walk to Raven's Nest. I stare at the spot Lucas stood, willing him back, into my waking state, but he is not there, and Owen and I continue walking without hassle.

We talk about 'us'. I tell him that if I dissociate and start going into 'that territory' again, he needs to stop me if I don't stop myself. He agrees. Every time I remember anything that happened, my entire body squirms. I'm glad we have come to the agreement that we will not continue this dangerous path.

We walk into the veld, and I start smelling corruption in the air.

I've always had the Sight, up until my sixteenth birthday when it vanished. This fact terrified me. I know what is out there, and I can still sense them, but I cannot see them.

I'm not afraid of what I see. I'm terrified of what I can't see.

And the corruption in the air is strong, woozy, and sickly sweet. I smell it like a shark smells blood.

But nowhere can I find the source of it, and when Owen climbs up onto the rock next to me, I lash out and punch him out of terrified reflex, followed by heavy apologizing. We walk back home.

We spend the evening sitting in deck chairs, me reading Game of Thrones, him failing at playing a chess game against himself.

At page 90, I theorize that Jon Snow is not truly a bastard, and that he is the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen.

My reasoning is that Jon's 'father', Eddard Stark, only loved one woman more than his wife and that was his sister, and he never spoke to his wife about his sister, and the only other woman he never spoke to his wife about was Jon's mother.

In the early scene where King Robert visits the Stark Crypt to pay his respects to Lyanna, he speaks about how he 'vowed to kill Rhaegar for what he did to Lyanna', and I immediately assumed rape.

Then I connected the dots, and I have yet to see whether my theory is true or not.

At around the hundredth page, on Dany's wedding when she receives the Dragon eggs, I theorize that, contrary to the words of Illyrio, the eggs have not turned to stone over time and that they will hatch under the care of Dany, though for what reason, I cannot yet supply.

I rather like Khal Drogo. He seems a good man, and a good husband to his thirteen-year-old Stormborn bride.

A much better husband than her brother would ever have been. I hope he gets what he deserves - A slow, painful death that satisfies the reader.

Still full from my late lunch of an English breakfast with my father, I skip dinner (surprising, I know) and instead play guitar. I find a tune I came up with years ago, one I called 'Melody of Sleep', and as I played it, I could feel the eyes watching me fall closed, and I could feel the distant forest sleeping.

I spoke to Owen. It was dark, and I was feeling watched, and I was scared, so we cuddled while watching YouTube aimlessly. I spoke to him about my life at home. The pain. The trauma. And how it was never really acknowledged, how I lived on constant doubt of what I witnessed to the point where I would forget chunks of events, that I as constantly living in the shadowed fear of my family.

The decision to live with my father, who terrifies me and who I despise, for six months being a difficult choice easily made. I'd do anything to escape from the I was forced to call home.

I told him about the letter I wrote for my mother when I tried to kill myself, and how the only response to listening to the song had been my stepfather (who has raised me since two and whom I love dearly) telling my mom in a hushed voice in the room next to mine at night that I was sick, that the song is insanity.

My mother never truly heard it. Never heard the hurt behind the words. I sang it to her above a crowd full of people, her eyes the only place I looked, even as I asked her to sing me to sleep, even as I told her my biggest fears, a feat that took my entire body to complete.

And she never heard it.

I played the song to Owen. Then, exhausted, I asked him not to fall in love with me. People tend to do that after seeing my darkness.

I was too tired to ask him to go home, and fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning at half past eight, my phone out of batteries, the door open, Owen gone though I do not know when, missing Lucas more than anything.

I wish my Lucas was here.

- the Dreamcatcher Girl, In the Middle of Nowhere

On Monday morning, I somehow manage to get 12 hours of sleep and wake up at ten.

It's a teasing topic I'm happy about, and join in on the teasing when my father and Chris (farm owner) bring it up.

There was a fight in the main house, so I avoid it like the plague and resort to watercolour painting. It's my first time using a canvas, and my fourth time using proper watercolour, but I enjoy myself. Around midday, Chris calls me to help him with farmwork. Delighted, I comply.

The job is sitting on the back of the tractor and spread bags of grass seeds on the fields for future fodder. After getting grass seeds in just about every place that seems worthy, we finish, and Chris let's me drive the tractor back home.

It's my second time ever driving any sort of vehicle, the first being a very ill-taught lesson by my drunk cousin two years before which I made sure I forgot, and so I'm rather frightened. I stall once, have a thirty-second anxiety attack that is hidden really well, and continue perfectly. Chris leaves my side to fetch his car, and I'm left alone to drive the tractor the rest of the way - through a gate and up a narrow path, past the house and into the grassy parking area - and I'm screaming internally every step of the way.

I park the tractor, stop it, and hop out. Everything went well. I'm just in time for Owen to finish school, and he tells me all about his many moc-exams he wrote that day under his mother's raging eye. We play a game of chess in the early evening, me behind the stereo since I do not trust him with my eardrums, and he turns out to get addicted to my music.

I feel watched. Too watched. I feel Lucas nearby, and try to find him, but the feeling slips out of my grasp and I'm left shaking.

There's corn sheathes in the air, and Owen tells me it's from a maize farm far away. For a split second, I'm frozen with the dread of meeting Scarecrow, then I loosen up and finish him in chess. Left with one pawn and his king, the game got boring quickly, and so we knock our kings over at the same time (I swear his fell first) and we make our way to the main house.

The adults are having a meeting, and it sends me into a paralysed state of fear. We climb in through Owen's window and watch random YouTube videos for an hour before bucking up the courage to enter the living room.

Tracy is eating a bowl of popcorn, offers some, and it is the best popcorn I've ever tasted. I feel a little more at ease. I'm not at home anymore, they cannot hurt me.

I try to teach myself a few songs on the mandolin, fail, and snap a string. Convinced I'm going to get shouted at or slapped, my throat closes up and I'm having to stop myself from crying; but all that happens is I get reassured it's fine and a joke gets made about the amount of strings on the Mandolin and everything is okay again, despite my countless apologies.

My father calls me for dinner, it's tuna pasta, and I eat it fast, say goodnight, and return to the main house. Owen is filling out his voting sheets, and it feels weird, because he's half American and legally able to vote and so I watch him intensely.

When he's done, we go to his room and watch the Shining. I make a joke about Netflix and Chill, and we end up doing more than cuddling. I start dissociating, and stop it, apologize for stopping, and leave. I feel disgusted, but oh, so glad I stopped.

I shower to get his hands off me, and fall asleep overheating.

For the first time since arriving, I wake up in the middle of the night.

I go to the bathroom for water, and am horrified to find out my reflection is watching me again. I look nothing like myself, too thin, my arms too long, and the shadowy face that stares back at me is not mine. Suddenly, I feel freezing cold. In a hoodie, my sweatpants, and with the electric blanket on full blast; nothing keeps the cold out.

I force myself asleep.

And I dream about Lucas. It's a few seconds long, but it's him, and I remember it, and when I wake up I remember why I keep myself single. I remember that Lucas is real.

And I remember that he is very, very angry with me.

- My Yandere Lover, In the Middle Of Nowhere

It isn't my alarm that wakes me up in the morning.

It's Owen's. Typically, he left his phone in my room, and I got woken up by the ghastly sound of the exact music I despise, at 5:50am, then three times again every ten minute interval after.

Already grumpy, I take a shower, which helps - slightly.

With Owen's phone in my pocket, I make my way to the main house where he stays, only to be called by my father saying "don't go in there right now, it's too early", so I go for a walk instead.

I take the initial route to the Caves, but quickly change direction, walking through the veld, passing horses and mongeese and ground squirrels, slowly finding peace in my headphones.

I walk to a grove of Poplar trees, a cluster a few hundred meters wide, staying on the treeline. Somehow, I manage to cut my feet on hidden hands on six different places in the three minutes I spent in that forest. I link it to the deep feeling of 'do-not-disturb' that these trees are giving off, and climb the mountain instead.

I find a cave, the lowest one on the slope, scrubby bushes helping me hike up. I sit in the Cave for an hour, updating my Tumblr and going through Owen's phone out of sheer boredom, not taking any information in besides his Discord tag, then resort to watching the still scenery.

I take a picture, but it doesn't capture the height or depth of view I was seeing in real life. I begin heading back.

I find Owen in his room, doing his schoolwork - with the pandemic, he resorted to full homeschooling - and decide to annoy him out of boredom. He gives up after a few minutes, I give his phone back, and we talk about nothing for a few more minutes before I go to the kitchen and talk to his parents.

Tracy - his mother - is a beautiful woman in body and soul, and talking to her is wonderful. I'm still a little shy around his father, more formal, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying myself.

We talk about society and the schooling system until 1pm, when Joy asks to meet up halfway, so I drag Owen out of his room and we walk to the Lodge, meet her, and walk back.

The ground is lined with small crystals and semi-precious stones, so both journeys take way longer than they should.

It's a lazy sort of Sunday, so we simply sit on the veranda for a couple of hours before Joy leaves.

The adults are recording their radio show, so Owen and I have time to ourselves. A dangerous thing. I paint his nails, do his makeup and (against his entire will) tie his hair up and take a picture

He later makes that picture his profile for a few minutes, but I screenshot it for future blackmail.

Bored, we start going into dangerous territory. We start talking about what turns us on, and both agree on pain, and I am delighted to find out he has the most beautiful canines.

For those who don't know, I have intense dysphoria - thankfully not gender-wise - and often dissociate, to the point where anything I do is okay, whether I want to or not.

We start touching, we start kissing, and I'm enjoying myself, but I'm scared. My body doesn't feel whole, and I don't like the fact that it's Owen doing this and not Lucas.

We agree to stop.

I'm thankful he respects me enough to stop.

I begin drilling a more brotherly picture of him into my mind, and soon find myself completely at ease being a complete gremlin around him. We have dinner with everyone, a braai (South African barbeque) with potatoes and salads. I heavily avoid the potatoes and pile on the salads. Baked potato is the only food I am picky about.

The meal is wonderful and I have a long, happy conversation with the adults about my books and ideas, they seem enthralled, and contented; I return to my room, shower, and am in bed by ten, convinced I will wake up at six.

I have a solid night of sleep, and wake up at ten in the morning. My mind is settling in.

- There's Something Very Ancient Sleeping, In the Middle of Nowhere

After waking up, I make my way to my father's house for breakfast. I found out that a) there are no sharp knives in the kitchen, b) he does not own dish soap, c) he leaves the kitchen an absolute mess and d) he does not know how to pack a fridge.

I spend an hour cleaning the kitchen before making myself a fruit smoothie, with enough left over for the next day's breakfast.

I realize that I do not know where the guest house key is, and also realize it's one of those doors that lock from the inside when you close them. I faintly remember Damon (Owen's brother) having them last, and when my father comes in, he chucks them to me. Damon had them.

We do not make conversation. He sits down, switches on the news, and I can't stand the news so I go for a walk.

About a kilometre down the road, still on the farm, is the Lodge. It has a bar, and a piano, and I comfort myself with the piano for a few hours. I meet Joy, a beautiful African girl a few months older than me, and she immediately makes me feel welcome. She goes to Owen's school, and we exchange contact details and agree to meet up the next day. Eventually she leaves to see her boyfriend, so I walk back. I find a group of Willows tucked away next to the road, and it's a beautiful place, so I sit there and draw for a while.

Eventually I get hungry and go back to the guest house. My father is there, he asks where I've been but not in an angry tone, and not really in a caring one either, and I'm surprised to find myself ecstatic about my newfound freedom, and the fact that he won't really care no matter how far I walk. I'm faintly scared I'll have a blackout and walk into the mountains and never return to Nowhere. Even fainter is the desire to be Nowhere at all.

I make myself food, and head out to find Owen. We walk the opposite direction I had gone in that morning (it's about 1pm now) and we walk nearly two kilometres to the Caves, two beautiful caves surrounded by trees. We only visited the one, and I quickly noticed that the Cave we went to had erosion in the roof that gave me intense tryptophobia, so we left.

Owen is extremely sweet, but a very closed up person, so me - A strategically open person - keep up the conversation. I ask him what music he likes, and he tells me anything good. I scoff. He asks me the same thing. I give him his own answer.

Anything good.

We come back to his house, deep in a conversation about my upcoming comic, Wraith Café. We have some of his mom's stir fry accompanied by homemade kombucha, and it feels a bit like home again.

He requests to see my art, so I fetch my folder from my room - he refuses to come on, in case my father sees - so we sit outside, and he adores my art, and I wonder if by the time the six months are over we will be romantically involved or the equivalent of siblings. I hope it's the latter.

We watch the Shining part 2 (Doctor Sleep) and I, who adores horror movies and yet has never seen the Shining due to inaccessibility, am thoroughly disappointed. I do not stick around to finish it, and begin drawing in my room.

I have an anxiety attack, bordering on a blackout, and by the time I'm Numb; Owen knocks on my door and I let him enter. He proves to a valuable light- and water source in the horribly lit room. If he had a third hand, I'd have probably made him hold the paints, too.

We ended up watching YouTube while practically intertwined, and I realize I couldn't get comfortable next his bony frame, but as the night wears on he starts running circles on my legs. I like it, I like it a lot; but I start feeling guilty about Lucas and uncomfortable and scared, and tell him to leave. It's two in the morning, and I catch up on my messages. I go to sleep at three, crying, missing my best friend. Papa is the most comfortable person I'd ever slept with - as in, sleep, not sex - and I missed her warmth.

I get woken up at six with the realization that Owen's "anything good" is vastly different from mine.

- It's a Lonely Beautiful Place, In the Middle of Nowhere

When I got off the bus, it was a gas station called "Johnny's Filling Station", and my father was waiting for me outside. I'd been shaking with nerves for hours now, and he hugged me as soon as he saw me, but there was no love in it.

I'm tired, and I tell him, and he laughs; saying he expected nothing less. He somehow managed to break my suitcase in three different place in the space of six seconds, and all he does is chuckle. I smiled, too tired to express my frustration.

I probably wouldn't have expressed it, even if I had a full night of sleep. I'm not very open with him.

His friend - an old man whose farm we're going to be staying on, whose wife was the very first person to hold me after birth -picks us up, and we go shopping. It's hot, and I'm still in the heavy clothing meant for the cold Western Cape weather, but I don't complain.

We'd walked for about an hour, shop to shop, and my head was hurting, and I was getting snappy, so we went into a café and I had a high-sugar cherry milkshake and a big breakfast, which kept me going for a bit longer.

I couldn't sleep on the way to the farm - even further into the Middle of Nowhere, about forty-five minutes closer to the Lesotho border, tucked away next to a place called Rustler's Valley. It's breath-takingly beautiful, but so Nowhere that I can't figure out whether I love it or hate it.

After moving my luggage into the guest house, I take a shower and get into some new clothes, washing all that travel grime off. I try to sleep, but it's still day time so I don't, and Gove up after twenty minutes. By now it's late evening, about an hour before the sun sets at six, and I meet the rest of the family living on the farm.

My father introduces me to Owen, a pretty-eyed, thin-limbed boy of eighteen with a cute smile. My father immediately tells me that "under no circumstance am I allowed to song him". I cringed and commented on his awful word use under my breath.

Who was he to dictate my relationships when he turns up with a new girlfriend every two weeks and was never there to help me through the most confusing time of my life?

I make myself some Vanilla Chai tea (my absolute favourite, a whole bloody R50 from Woolworths), and settle down, listening to the conversations, painfully noticing for the fiftieth time that everyone loves my father.

We have spaghetti Bolognese for dinner, and I struggle stitching it, being the first time in three years I eat mince. I resort to popcorn, and we watch Kung Fu Hustle with Owen and his (way) older half-brother, then we watch 6 Underground, and god it was overrated.

I eventually go to bed at midnight, but toss and turn for another three hours before falling asleep. The day felt way too long.

I woke up at nine.

- the Fashion in Ficksburg Sucks, In the Middle of Nowhere

Since I've been busy, I'll post the messages I sent my mother on the bus ride:

[18/09, 06:05] Midnight✨: Haven't slept yet, the skies are grey-orange, and everything, everywhere, is flat. No mountains in the horizon, and the only obstructions are bushy hills that are probably as rare as mango trees in the western cape - they're small, weak, and few between. Every now and then there's a cluster of houses, a small village like ones in those Americans shows, the everyone-knows-everyone size.

The colour of the grass is wheat-gold, and it looks like it would be scratchy. The only green I've seen so far are the small, round, olive-green bushes that are the only thing keeping the hills up, the few clusters of gum trees surrounding some desolate houses, and the road signs. I do not recognize the names on any of the signs.

[18/09, 06:07] Midnight✨: I feel rather lost, in quite a slow sort of way, like a waking dream I have yet to open my eyes from, although I know it's a dream. I haven't gotten out of the bus or switched buses, as there is a toilet on board and I do believe I have not reached Bloemfontein yet. Still safe

[18/09, 06:16] Midnight✨: Most of the people are asleep. I do not have enough knee space to be comfortable enough for sleep, so I've read and I've drawn and on occasion I've written, too.

I've een reading a Game of Thrones. I do not like the Queen, nor do I like just about any of the Lannisters, with the only exception (so far) being Tyrion, who seems a rather good character and will probably die, as all good characters probably shall in this series.

Also, Jon Snow has so far proven himself to be quite wonderful, and god I adore Arys. Bran has been pushed from the roof by the Queen's brother, and I have yet to read whether he survives or not, though I do feel like he does, and will probably survive quite a few scrapes with death, and just when you think he might slip through George Martin's serial killer tendencies, he will probably die - which will be a pity. I like Bran. But George Martin is not my bitch, so I'm not complaining.

And I've met Daenerys, and I love her more than anything, and quite naturally, I despise her brother.

[18/09, 06:18] Midnight✨: The sun has just risen - from ground, not mountain - and it's red, like spice, not like the white-gold sun that rises at home.

[18/09, 06:23] Midnight✨: There are now two mountains - or maybe a mountain and a large hill, or maybe they are both large hills, I'm too far away to know - on the horizon, but that's far away. Further on - but still close - we are coming up on a larger town, with large buildings and large signs and lots of people. A sign reads Kroonstad to the left, another says Colesberg to the right, and we are somewhere in the middle of that.

[18/09, 06:45] Midnight✨: The scenery changed quicker than the temperature at nightfall. The houses here are all brown brick and fences and concrete walls trying to hide their ugliness by half tucking themselves between leafles trees, and if you were here, we'd be muttering about how we would never want to live here. Somewhere further, between the sea of houses, there is an oasis of a block of flats, and I am very much relieved I do not have to be stranded there.

[18/09, 06:47] Midnight✨: I just passed some very badly cut trees, and I know that Dad would know how to love them back to green life.

- Sleep Deprived Texts to my Mom, In the Middle of Nowhere

IMPORTANT UPDATE

The bus has charger ports

At midnight, I started needing the toilet (five straight hours of nervous binge eating does that).

I knew there was a toilet on the bus. It said so. At this point, most of the people were asleep, and we had passed two stops (I was too paranoid about leaving my snacks unattended to get off the bus).

So I'm sitting on the second deck, the window seat to the back left (in South Africa, right is the drivers side), just about as far from the toilet as you can get on this thing - I believe, because I don't really know where the toilet is - and now my anxiety kicks in.

What if - hear me out, what if there isn't a toilet.

My fear was rational.

(Was.)

It took me thirty minutes of edging from the edge of the seat, peering into the row, and edging back into the safety of my snacks before I bucked up and-

Woke my best friend up.

If you dare try to tell me I'm a bad friend, I will murder you with glitter; shut up. So at half past midnight, I drag my best friend (pronouns: he/she/it/papa) online (Papa is still safely coccooned in it's lair back home) and explain my life-threatening circumstance.

You have to understand that at the time, I was absolutely petrified. You know - What if, say, I worked up the nerve to go downstairs, and a) there wasn't a toilet, b) I couldn't find the toilet c) I trip over someone's legs or d) (most importantly) my snacks get taken while I'm gone??

At the time, these were all apparently VERY valid reasons to stay put... but Papa basically pulled a "if you don't top bothering me and drag your ass to the bathroom, I WILL delete your Minecraft savefile".

Of course, I couldn't let that happen, so I stuffed a wad of toilet paper in my jeans pocket, stood up (ensuring first that I knew the EXACT position of EVERYTHING I had with me), and practically danced down the aisle.

Picture this: sleeping people, legs sticking out from chairs, moving vehicle - and for those who don't know, navigating the top deck of a moving vehicle is more difficult than the lower deck - Oh, and everything is in this "sleep coloured" navy tint, so you've basically lost 90% of your sight, too.

Fun.

Anyways, thanks to previous years of sailing, I glided down the aisle without so much as a single misstep. I was rather proud of myself.

Make it downstairs, and there's the toilet. So I reach out for the handle, the sudden nerve-wracking fear of "What if it's occupied? What if they didn't lock the door??" Flooding my head for a second.

And then a light activated and basically lit me up like a beacon in crime shows. Turns out there was a movement sensor, which wasn't needed at all, seriously. When you go to the toilet, you want to be discreet; not plaster your face into the spotlight minds of everyone watching.

So I slip into the stall as fast as possible, sit down, message Papa that yes, I'm complying, please don't delete my save file; and then I realize there isn't any toilet paper.

I spend a minute having a mini heart attack about what the frick frack I'm going to use as toilet paper before I remember that I brought toilet paper with me.

So after conquering that battle, the door decides to be difficult and refuses to close. So another good minute was used to close the bloody door, in that bloody spotlight, with everyone watching; before I turn and scuttle as fast as I could back upstairs, nearly miss my seat, and sit back down as fast as I could.

Then I tell Papa that I am fabulous, it tells me to sleep, and I return to my snacks, gloriously unrationed now that I have the power to go to the toilet whenever I please. Hopefully.

- Toilet Humour is Hilarious, In the Middle of Nowhere

Hey Tumblr!

I'm going to be using this site to document the wonderful adventures I shall be having for the next six months with my Biological Father (Big Bad Wolf TM) in the Free State.

I've never been further than about 6 hours drive from home, longest... 2 weeks.

I'm sixteen, have dAdDy IsSuEs, a hopeless romantic with a vivid imagination and- oh god, I'm starting to sound like a YA novel.

So far... I'm on the bus. It's half past eight, pitch black outside, and it's only getting darker. I said goodbye to my parents an hour ago, and my little brother three hours before that... He couldn't come with to drop me off.

I waved my parents goodbye through tinted windows, terrified, and sat paralysed in my seat for about half an hour before arranging my belongings and cleaning up.

It's one of those double-decker buses with a closed roof. Nothing fancy, two-seat-rows per side, not too much knee space (which sucks, because I'm 6 foot tall and all the food goes to my legs... And it's a common fact that I adore food.

For eleven hours into the night and back into the morning, I took with me a whole bag of food, as well as snacks stuffed into just about any book that presented itself in my clothing and my laptop bag.

My parents are convinced I'll read for about an hour before falling asleep, and the notion alone offended me - they of all people should know that I can pull a remarkable amount of all-nighters in a row, and if it concerns a Game of Thrones (the book I'm currently reading) and a bus full of adult strangers, they should know that the chances of me sleeping are as non-existent as me finding Lucas on the next stop.

Pair my insomnia - present in the most comfortable bed, let alone a bus - with a bag and a half full of energy-boosting snacks, I plan on staying up till I arrive in the Free State. (A province of Southern Africa, while my home is Western Cape, another province of South Africa)

I've already had one accident. The small bottle of homemade hand cream I shoved in my laptop bag for some ungodly reason decided to kindly take it's hat off to me when I opened the bag. It took me fifteen minutes to clean the cream from between the pages of the unused notebook my grandmother got for my trip. This incident had me jiggling my leg for another fifteen minutes - my mind on the paints and creams with screw-on lids like this one that are in my suitcase in storage.

Well, if they leak, at least it will drown out my fear of this new chapter.

The picture featured is a screenshot of a text from my close friend Sunflower, who somehow managed to make me laugh before writing this.

- The Midnight Living Next Door, in the Middle of Nowhere