Sleep Deprived

I've been writing these little vignettes lately, and I like them just as much (if not more) than a proper short story.

"One day ants will rule the world."

I yawned slightly, eyes fighting sleep."No they wont Joel. Ants are tiny and you can crush about thirty of them at one time." Joel was always saying things like this.

"But they can carry about three hundred times their own weight. Imagine if they got organised." He rolled over onto his side and stared down at me, waiting for my response. I just sighed, and shut my eyes, trying to drift back to sleep. He always did this when I was trying to sleep, it was like he was trying to squeeze in every last ounce of conversation from me before I went to sleep.
Sometimes I'd wake up and he'd be watching me, eyes frantic with worry and fear. It was as though he never expected me to wake up, and every morning when I did it was the same shock.

It wasn't any use, I could feel his eyes on me. "Joel, go back to sleep. Please." After a few seconds of silence I heard the squeak of the bed as his body flopped back down onto it. We lay in the quiet, neither of us asleep. My pride refused to admit that my head was now consumed with thoughts of ants ruling the world.

"You dont love me anymore." His voice was quiet, not accusatory. A statement.

"No," I replied. "I don't think I do." It was true. We hadn't loved each other for months. We were comfortable in each other, that was all there was too it. I sighed softly, the distance between us growing by kilometers in seconds. And then, a hand reached out and touched mine, gentle in the darkness. It brushed my fingers tentatively, as if scared of being pushed away.

But our fingers clamped together, and through the blue light of the night, I smiled.