I need to sleep.

Thomas Shelby was right—sometimes, after achieving something great, some nights it is not possible to have a good sleep. It feels like you are at precarious risk of losing it all at once coz of one mistake. One misfortune. One miscalculated step. One smirk from mother nature and you are back to just dust that you are.

I’ve been pondering this after watching the Tommy Shelby and Winston Churchill scene for the a millionth time. If you witness first-hand my obsession with fictional characters you’d immediately deem me mad and not even feel bad for calling me something like that. Coz I obsess over characters with beautiful literary prowess like Tommy Shelby himself. Most males, and even a few females, obsess over his masculine character and gangster life. But I obsess over his speech. He is a main character with very few lines that speak volumes and leave you gasping for more words from his lips. Obsession is an understatement—an abuse to the goosebumps I get on my arms when someone uses their words creatively. I am a Gen Z, so much of Winston Churchill or Shakespeare’s writings and speeches don’t stand a hair on my body. But I bask and marvel in the literary greatness of fictional characters like Tommy, Thanos, Tony Stark etc.

On an impromptu visit from Winston Churchill, Churchill tells Tommy that he knows his secret plans of spying on a rising fascist political leader, in the pretense of working with the fascist. And this is where Tommy drops the line “I need to sleep”. This was the one person Tommy couldn’t beat—coz he was “the devil himself!”. You just need to watch Peaky Blinders to get how terribly great this fascist is.

I quote Tommy’s conversation with Mr. Churchill:

“Do you dig your own flower garden?” Mr. Churchill asks.

“I have a gardener. In fact, I have three gardeners: three generations of men with no ambition, who are happier than I’ll ever be.” Tommy—with his normal stern face that you can never know whether he is reading you or thinking of his next smart-ass answer. Often, even to people ‘better than him’ like Prime Minister Churchill, he still employs sarcasm, irritating small talk and unbreaking eye contact that digs deep into your terrified soul.

“….”

“I need to sleep.” Tommy.

“You said you don’t sleep.” Churchill.

“I said I have trouble sleeping.” Tommy.

“So do I. So do I.” Churchill.

“There are some times,some nights when I don’t see the point of carrying on with any of it.” Tommy.

“Oh. That old dance routine. I put out a cigar, and an hour later I want another. Sometimes, the bridge between hours is as fragile as that. But use it anyway.” Churchill.

And yet in another conversation with his elder brother Arthur:

“Arthur, I have trouble sleeping. And when I do sleep, I dream. And in my dream, someone wants my crown.”

^Tommy walks out, not giving a damn of Arthur’s compassion to him^

Coz I know you won’t watch Peaky Blinders, let me rant a synopsis of this film masterpiece so that I rest.

Tommy, and his family, was born in a life of struggle, surrounded by the dirt roads and the smoky factories of Birmingham. If you don’t know Birmingham, that is where Jude Bellingham comes from. You know, the black son of Zidane? That one. He has almost the same aura and ball size as Tommy Shelby, coz they get things done. Anyway, as a child, their father abandoned the family and left the mother, who later committed suicide, leaving behind 5 kids. Arthur the eldest, Tommy the smartest and most ambitious, Johnny the rowdy, little Finn, and the only girl Arda. If Luos were from Birmingham they would have called her nyako moja but that is neither here nor there.

After World War I, Tommy said ‘No more of this sh*t! We can also live like Lords, Ladies and Ministers, coz “they’re worse than us! And they’ll never accept us into their rooms because of where we come from [pigsty Birmingham], because of who we are, no matter what we do [fight wars for people drinking scotch in offices].” and so I’ll take the bull by the horns’. And that is how Tommy turned his low-gang family from the muds of Birmingham to selling opium, guns and booze in England, America and Russia. Mind you that time there was no business class or economy in planes or whatever. It was trains to the docks then a day(s)-long ship to wherever the world you wanted to go. And good luck getting there. And so overseas trade was only left for risk-takers and people with balls in business like Tommy Shelby, and Alfie Solomons of course—the crazy nutjob that Tommy had no choice or way but to keep alive.

Through sheer will, a lot of cigarettes and liquor, hookers, Grace, guns, brains, muscle and “by order of the Peaky Blinders!”, the Shelby Company Ltd. clawed its way up the then disheveled world after World War I. In the process Tommy built a fortune that set him apart in whatever he did or said. But the higher he climbed, the more his nights were consumed by a haunting fear—sleep felt like surrendering his throne to someone lurking in the dimly lit streets of Birmingham. PTSD from the war he had bravely fought in, his three kids from three different mothers and the disgusting feeling that comes with putting a bullet in a horse’s head, didn’t help his sleep situation either.

Business was expanding vast and fast, but his peace remained elusive. The best peace he’d ever experienced was when the guns went silent, and he’d never be the same again. “No man came back the same.”

The bigger problem was that he knew the faces of all the enemies he thought were after his throne, a throne that’d he literally scrapped from the muds of Birmingham to the illustrious Halls of Law of England, where he even shared a roof with Churchill himself. He had crushed countless rivals to secure this place—Billy Kimber, Major Campbell [who even wanted the love of his life Grace], pedophile Father Hughes [I told you not to trust these Reverends or Fathers or Pastors, whatever you call them. Trust in the Lord], Russians [some hot Russian duchess who was a freak both in bed and in business dealings], Luca Changretta and his Mafia group, the Billy Boys, Michael Gray [that son of a b*****, thought he knew business better than Tommy coz of his enormous jawline], and Oswald Mosley. They don’t come worse than Mosley! A Nazi fascist? Naah! This one made Tommy go mad for two whole seasons and made him flee to the mountains on a white horse. Mad.

And this Mosley is where it’s at. Tommy couldn’t defeat him coz the devil is that smart. And also, he could not defeat the power he now possessed. Wealth had become his captor, whispering to him that one wrong move, one night of unguarded rest, could cost him everything. Tommy claimed he did all this for his family but did he really? Business even made him miss the last moments of his daughter when she was critical in the hospital. Business made the love of his life Grace get shot by crazy Italians who didn’t like the jewelry Grace was wearing. Business. Family. You choose.

His kingdom thrived during the day, but at night, his restless thoughts turned his victories into a prison. He could not close his eyes without imagining Oswald lurking in the dark. To make it worse, Lizzie—Tommy’s third wife—was previously a worker in the adult industry, if you know what I mean. And in the line of duty Lizzie had given Oswald a night to remember, and he reminded it to Tommy every chance he got.
“I’ve been with your wife, Mr. Shelby. She’s quite the woman!” 
What would you say if you were Mr. Shelby. There’s absolutely nothing you could say or do. Such a man is above you and is constantly crashing at your balls every time he as much as smirks at you.

And so, Tommy always lay awake, staring at the ceiling and smoking a cigarette, defeated both by a person and by wealth and power. He had won every battle against miniature rival gangs in Birmingham and London, crushed them and told them “Go home to your families!”

But Oswald.

Oswald proved Tommy’s own saying that “There is God and there are the Peaky Blinders.” Killer line, until you realize Oswald was like, “There is a God. There are the Peaky Blinders. And then there is Oswald Mosley.”

“Talk to me!” Arthur, the ruthless to others, but loving supportive big brother to Tommy.

“I may have found him, Arthur—the man I can’t defeat. I don’t know. I don’t f****** know. Doesn’t make sense. I need to walk.”

^Close curtains, end scene^

✍🏽Reagan.