The devil tap-dances at 4

I was laying in my bed, desperately trying to get to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes random thoughts and visions invaded my mind. I grabbed my phone from its spot on the nightstand, as I pressed the power button a bright blue light nearly blinded me, squinting my eyes I quickly turned the searing brightness down to a bearable soft glow, it was already three in the morning. Turning the phone back off I turned on my side and closed my eyes for the umpteenth time. This time, instead of trying to keep my mind blank, I started counting sheep. I pictured a light brown fence set at the center of a vast field of lush green grass. For a while, there, fluffy sheep would pass through my mental field of vision jumping over that fence with ease, but after about 50 or so sheep jumped the fence my mind grew bored and the sheep began dancing through the field, they did backflips and other stunts as they went over the fence. Eventually, my mind abandoned the field and the sheep completely, what ensued was yet another myriad of random-ass images and thoughts, past conversations, conversations with famous people that have never (and would never) happen, images from my childhood, and quick little anime-style fight scenes. I blew out hot air and quickly flung apart my eyelids, I was frustrated, pissed, at myself, and at my mind for not shutting down and letting me get some sleep. I looked at my phone again, 3:45 in the A.M. Blowing out more hot air and changing my position yet again, I closed my eyes...again.

This time around the technique I went with was something I saw online a couple of hours before laying down. I inhaled and exhaled very slowly, relaxing my muscles as the air left my lungs. After "relaxing" my body, I envisioned I was on a boat in the middle of a lake looking up at a beautiful blue sky. It worked, at least for a bit. I could genuinely feel that relaxing cool fall wind brushing against my skin, I could hear the light chirping of birds in the forest by the lake, I could even feel the soothing rhythmic sway of the boat under me. This much detail, unfortunately, resulted in being counterproductive. I began imagining building my very own cabin in the woods, right next to that imaginary lake, with its clear waters and fish that were asking to be caught. Then my mind, noticing me getting distracted from the original sleep-inducing image, began its parade of incoherent thoughts anew.

Then a new, foreign, picture produced itself in my mind. It didn't feel like one of the random thoughts that came from my mind. It was alien. I didn't notice it at first, it was similar to music being slowly turned up from inaudible to overwhelmingly loud, it slowly began drowning out all other thoughts.

What I saw was a man dressed in a very fancy get up; a black suit, top hat, he even had a long black cane. The man in the suit, I couldn't quite make out his face, was tap dancing on a big black and white floor that resembled a chessboard. He kept on tappedy tapping, the sound of his shoes stomping rhythmically on the chessboard grew louder and louder in my head, until the sound appeared to break some kind of barrier separating thought from reality and I could hear it, not only in my head but physically ahead of me as well. I tentatively opened my eyes. The sound and imagine disappeared from my head the moment my eyes were fully opened, but I could still hear that tapping coming from the shadows on the wall in front of me. The tapping was very quiet, it sounded like it was coming from far away, however, just like in my head the tapping was steadily growing louder, or rather closer.

Then the chessboard I had seen in my head emerged from the darkness of the wall like a train exiting a tunnel, on top of the chessboard was the man in the suit. The man was jubilantly tapping his feet up and down, he was beginning to accelerate, stomping faster and faster. Even though I couldn't see his face I could tell he was having a ball, smiling from ear to ear. He was dancing so fast now his feet became a shifting blur of black, I was hypnotized by his tap dancing, I couldn't speak or move, I could only sit there staring at the man in the suit and his joyous movements.

The man abruptly stopped and landed in that signature dancers pose. Feet spread a little more than shoulder-width apart, one looking like it would begin sweeping the floor like a broom at any second. The hand carrying the cane held up behind him, cane at an angle of about 70 degrees with respect to the floor, his free hand now held out the top had, its opening pointing towards my face.