Lady Sleep

Sleep is a seducer. I know her traitorous ways.

When the horizon swallows half the sun and leaves the other half burning, she'd come for me walking.

When the sun is devoured and darkness reigns, she'd come for me running.

When the sun is revived, shimmering with fiery breath, waiting for its fated death and rebirth, Lady Sleep is done with me.

She'd always, always get me.

She's here now. Slithering into my bed. Her bedding is my head.

She lulls me in her cold embrace, whispering sweet promises. I could have it all, she says, she purrs. A Release. Rest. Perhaps a pleasant, long-forgotten memory.

There was a time when I used to take some comfort in the very first moment of consciousness, in that split second where the gears in my head would turn and my senses sharpen and I am bound to tangible reality. It mattered not how horrendous the visions of Lady Sleep were, it was still worth the sweet euphoria of knowing they were unreal and I was back to sanity.

But now it matters not whether I give in to lady Sleep or resist her. She doesn't need to pierce me with her poison anymore. Doesn't need to paralyze me and rob me of self-ownership. The nightmares are seeping into my waking hours, you see. I could no longer claim any moment as real or a dream.

They say our dreams are the offspring of our waking thoughts. And I don't allow myself to think of the dead boy, but I see him anyway.

I would see him, anywhere and everywhere, and close my eyes shut for very, very long. Long enough to quietly smother my mind. I had once mastered the skill of choking out these dark, polluted thoughts and images before they can creep in, slimly and sneaky and slippery, and corrupt whatever was left of me that was still human and sane. But now corruption has become my master, and the cracks in my foggy, brittle mind can't keep everything out any longer.

Lady Sleep's voice is honey-velvet when she promises the outrageous, the unthinkable: To suck the dreams out of my mind. Take the poison out. Make my unconsciousness a void of nothingness and expose my waking nightmares as mere shadows in the dark.

Wasn't this my sole, urgent, desperate desire for the last three years? Dreamless slumber? Sanity? No thought at all of the boy I had led to slaughter?

The dead boy always comes when Lady Sleep eats me whole and the curtains of my vision fall dead.

He's always there. Beckoning. Smiling with no mouth.

Louise is behind him. My Louise, my Pitbull. Enormous and light grey and ugly-cute.

Her betrayal is the one thing I could not fathom.

I took her in after her previous owner abandoned her in a dirty shelter. Too aggressive and wild, he said. As I was once an aggressive, wild, hurt, ruined child, I felt a strange kinship with Louise.

I had fought tooth and nail to keep her. When they had insisted she was dangerously feral and no weaker creature would be safe around her; I held her tighter. I poured the entire well of my heart onto her until I had no love left for anyone else. I had sacrificed actual friendships so my dear Louise wouldn't sacrifice a thing. She was my baby, and for her I thought of myself last. The thought of disciplining her, of forcing that on her, broke me. So I didn't force anything.

I didn't think much about the new neighbor kid who used to cross the street near my house and wave goodbye to his school bus. His raven hair and sandy-brown skin glistened in the sun. His school bag was much bigger than his tiny, skinny frame and filled with cartoon puppy pictures. He knocked at my door once, carrying a dish of rice with curry for me and a homemade treat for Louise. A gift from Mama, he said. His smile was achingly tender and too eager to please. Something about it tightened my chest and stirred a sudden urge to cry within me. My hand reached to pet his head but I held myself back. The boy looked disappointed by my outward non-reaction and his sweet smile was colored with barely repressed sadness. He stepped back awkwardly before waving goodbye. I wanted to wave back but he had already turned around and walked away, skipping and whistling, as if trying to cheer himself up.

One hot summer afternoon; Louise had no leash on and she sniffed the boy. They say she ate his lips and mouth. No one but me knew it was my Pitbull who came home with a gaping mouth gushing with someone else's blood. I cleaned her up. I played deaf, blind, and mute about the whole thing. The boy became another 'cold case' and was soon forgotten. Perhaps another undocumented kid. Not worth a news story.

I don't allow myself to think of the mouthless dead boy. It matters not. Nightmares are merciless, and lady Sleep is their faithful servant.

The mouthless boy waves to me in the street that I'm forced to walk (to run), in the dog shelter I crossed the street to reach (to hide), in the cage that I locked myself inside (to disappear).

I haven't slept in five days. My mind is disintegrating. The world is shifting like sand around me and no image looks real. My body doesn't feel belonging to me. No part of me is concrete. There is a bomb inside me and it's tick tick tick ticking…..

I know. I know for certain. They will get me.

The dog is panting like it's struggling to breathe. A beast in the dark, slavering. Its eyes are blank and pure white. Its tongue is freakishly long, with tiny and sharp teeth stuck to it, bleeding. Its gaping mouth is a black void that stinks with blood.

It's behind the boy. The one who shouldn't have died with his smile ripped out. The one who's moving closer and closer. 

The dog is behind the boy and they're both smiling as they run toward me.