Piece modeled after “Sleepless in Any City”

Vienna, June 2019. Roughly 1:30 am. I need to get to sleep. In 3 and a half hours they will come knock on the doors and pull all fifty of us out of bed to make our flight back to the United States. But, I don’t want to go home. Back to the normal, everyday slog of Batesville, Arkansas. I want to stay here in the exciting rush of a European city where everyday holds new possibility for adventure. The people are freer here, happier. Maybe that is what is keeping me awake, but maybe not. Maybe it is the drip drip drip of the shower head that won’t shut off. It’s not a matter of “oh you should just get up out of bed and turn it a little more to the right, silly.” We’ve tried that already. All four of us, confined in this small room with bad mattresses in the budget motel near the airport, have tried to turn off that shower at various points tonight. The other three have all nodded off, escaping the noise in the realm of dreams, but I am here awake. Just me and the drip drip drip. I wonder if anyone in the other rooms can hear it. Are their showers similarly leaky? I send a message in the group chat to ask. No one responds, it is 1:30 am after all. I must be the only one awake, except for the shower. Just me and the drip drip drip.