In Sleep, We Meet
It’s 2:36 am. My eyes are heavy and there are no more visible distractions left to keep me away from you. The movies are over, the games have been played, and the rest of the world is quiet. I go to bed even though I know you’re there waiting. I shuffle under my fiberglass blankets, pretend I’m comfortable and say goodnight to the dog as she lays on the floor. Soft pillows, heavy slumbers, and sweet dreams. You make it sound so tempting, but still, I’d rather be awake.
I lay in silence, thinking of old memories, and things I want to forget. I replay scenarios and gladly get lost in one-sided conversations. Anything to keep from getting drowsy.
In the subtle moments between awake and asleep, you first make your presence known. A glass-shattering explosion, and my body jolts like electrocution. You’ve ripped the oxygen from my lungs as if I were a fly caught in the sandwiched hands of a giant. But it’s just a tease. You’re only playing with me. Like a cat with a half-dead mouse. You torment me, but the worst it yet to come. I toss and turn, while my worn mattress springs poke and prod my patience.
I know you’ll be back.
Weary and weak, my eyes close like vault doors — my final moments of relative peace amid looming chaos.
Minutes pass. Maybe even hours. Abruptly, I awake. Or at least that’s what I think. An unsettling feeling scrapes across my body, like walking naked through blackberry bushes. My eyes open and I look to the foot of my bed. There you stand. That shadowy figure. No name, no explanation for your presence. A tall, cloaked, and ominous being with glowing, red eyes that announce your ill intentions. A recognizable enemy. You’ve been unwanted since the day we met. I try to move but my muscles are trapped in a state of rigor mortis. I try to yell, but my voice is dead. You’ve been here before, so I know what happens next.
“This isn’t real. Wake up!” I tell myself, in perpetuity.
The charred figure inches closer, towering over my lifeless body. Its hands, bony and slender, shoot out from its black cloak and lock on to my legs like an abused Pitbull. Its ragged fingernails dig deep into my skin. My body is too heavy for me to move. I’m paralyzed and chained to the bed. But the figure drags me with ease. I try to yell to wake up the dog. Again, nothing comes out. I desperately clench my mattress as the figure drags me off my bed and onto the floor with a loud “thud.”
“Fight back!” I scream. “Just move!”
The figure intends to consume me, to pollute my slumber, and to feast on my energy. It wants us to be conjoined in the shadows forever. With every ounce of strength and concentration, I know I just have to move a limb or rollover, and the fear will be released.
My muscles strain to the point of bursting. I sweat and shake like an addict. My teeth grit as raw power begs to be unleashed. Finally, I outstretch an arm and the figure fades into the dark from where it came. With a gasp of air and a violent twitch, I awake for real this time.
I’m back in my bed. In fact, I had never left. I lay in a pool of cold disarray and confusion. That dark figure, the unrelenting image of fear, was a creation of my subconscious. A symbol of unhealed trauma. A reminder that I can’t escape the problems that feed on me.
I know you’ll be back. I guess I’ll just learn to fight in the dark.
