Holden was being dramatic—but only slightly. The tourists had descended on Carbondale like a plague of locusts. Except these particular locusts were wearing cardboard eclipse glasses, cargo pants, Crocs, and—tragically—fanny packs. Pedestrians filled the sidewalks in droves. Automobile traffic resembled what I imagined my uncle Gary’s arteries looked like on his breakfast/lunch work diet of McGriddles and XXL Grilled Stuft Burritos that he had been subsisting on for the past twenty years. Everyone and everything was heading in the general direction of Saluki Stadium. That was where the biggest eclipse viewing party was taking place.

“Speaking of nightmares,” said Holden, “you look like shit. You okay?”

“Didn’t sleep last night,” I said. My tone was flat. Unaffected. Completely resigned to my fate.

“Man, tell me something I don’t know. Forget sleeping pills. You need some good ol’-fashioned chloroform.”

Although the stress of asking You Know Who to the You Know What may have been a factor, the root of the problem was my chronic insomnia. I hadn’t slept in the past seventy-two hours and counting. And boy, was I feeling it. I could feel the ache for sleep in my bones. I could feel the circles under my eyes. But I didn’t dare crawl back into bed. That would be putting too much pressure on my not-so-trusty hypothalamus—the dysfunctional part of my brain responsible for shutting things down. It was like the concept of “stage fright” when you pee at a public urinal. It didn’t matter if your bladder was in nuclear meltdown mode. Performance was impossible. When it came to sleep, it was best just to let things shut down on their own—wherever that may be. At my desk in Biology, in the passenger seat of Holden’s car, in the booth of an IHOP. Wherever. On bad weeks, my chronic insomnia would build and build and build until my sleep deprivation reached criticality and I just blacked out. It didn’t matter if I was standing, walking, or doing jumping jacks. My body just dropped like I was in the Matrix and someone pulled the plug on me.

I could feel the shutdown closing in. It felt like the thing holding my atoms and particles together was slowly coming unglued.

“I mean, normally the sleep deprivation works in your favor,” said Holden. “You’ve got this unhealthy, anemic male supermodel thing going on. Like that Twilight vampire meets Jared Leto playing a heroin junkie. But you really look like shit today. I’m saying that as a friend.”

“Thanks,” I said. I held my hand over my heart. “I’ll cherish that right here.”

Holden nodded, like he expected nothing less. I returned my attention to the sidewalk ahead and the hordes of people occupying it.

And the fanny packs.

And the Crocs.