He Slept Standing

 Yesterday, on my way home from work, I saw something at the Ozumba Mbadiwe Road that has refused to leave my mind.

A man was standing by the side  of the road sleeping. Cars slowed down and carefully drove past him, avoiding him the way one would avoid a pothole or a fallen pole.

The scene looked ordinary at first, yet the more I thought about it, the heavier it became. Although this is common with the military who are capable of sleeping with their eyes opened in order to stay alert, but how tired must a man be to fall asleep on his feet? What kind of exhaustion silences the instinct to move away from danger to even care about living?

But maybe that man wasn’t just one man. Maybe he was all of us. Because every day, many of us are standing and sleeping too , awake but not alive. We show up at work, attend meetings, laugh when we’re expected to, and scroll through our screens till the day ends. Still, somewhere inside, we’re barely conscious, running on fumes and pretending to be fine.

What struck me most wasn’t just his fatigue, but how nobody stopped. Not those driving nor the pedestrians. Nobody asked if he was okay. We all simply adjusted our speed and went around him. Perhaps we’re all too busy trying not to collide with someone else’s exhaustion. Maybe we’re afraid that if we stop, we might discover how tired we too are.

The world is full of standing sleepers; people leaning on invisible walls, trying not to fall. Some wear suits, some wear uniforms, some wear smiles. But behind the motions, there’s a quiet fatigue the world rarely notices.

And maybe that’s the real tragedy, not that a man slept standing, but that so many of us are still asleep while standing tall.

AI generated image.