The Sleep Assassins

“Pss, Molly,

are you sleeping?”

“Yes, I sleep. What do you need?”

“Auntie Thana snores like Sisyphus, rolling and rolling an air boulder up with her nose. Can we switch places?”

“You think my place is better? Mom’s elbow has grown into my liver.”

“Ugh!

Molly…

yesterday I was at Adriana’s. She has her own bed. Can you imagine? Large, with a thick mattress, a duvet that smells of peaches, and four pillows! She showed me what was under her mattress: many-many wooden slats, like rails. I’m telling you, her bed is a train that can take her anywhere in the world! And where can our mattress bring us if it does not have rails?

You know,

I read the myth of Ra who fights every night with the giant serpent Pop, Apop, Apep. Do you remember its name?

This snake devours the waters of the ocean and roars so loud that the Earth rumbles as the tectonic plates of my mattress while I, Ra, struggle with the giant serpentine-snore. I raise my spear-shaped hand and throw it to the wall. A wooden clatter pierces Auntie’s ears, and she squirms and turns over on her other side. Not everyone needs a train. Some have to stay where they are and fight the serpent endlessly.

Maybe one day somebody writes myths about me, the protector of the mattress?"

“Pss, Molly… Did you fall in your dreams again?”

“Yeah, sorry. Go back to sleep.”

“I’ll try.

Mrs. Johnson claims only children my age can fly and fall in their sleep because our legs and arms are growing. Sometimes I dream I am floating in the school hallway like an aircraft. Thirty-two paratroopers-teeth fall out of my mouth, deploy their tiny parachutes and burst like popcorn as they land. Yet, I do not wake up. But you…

You are different. At the beginning of the night, your micro-breaths are the flapping of a dragonfly’s wings. When the shadows on the walls grow thicker, you shiver like an air dancer in the wind, and you jump awaken. At that moment, the blanket floods my face like a stinking river. I failed at a game called Dark Waters. Did you play it when you were younger?

The rules are simple. First, you need to build a fortress. Gently, with your fingertips, lift up the sticky bed sheet and tuck it around the perimeter of the body. Like this. Thus, tiny fortresses protect you from all sides. If you don’t do it, somebody’s feet slip out of the ninth circle of Inferno and ice-burn you. You don't want it, do you? Second, you move your rough hands up your face. They bend over it, covering the forehead, eyes, cheeks, and chin. Your body turns into a pale submarine with a nose like a periscope. These preparations are ready and you are waiting. The Game starts. As Auntie breathes, the blanket rises like a pulsing green wave and falls with the force of a titan. Your Coxcox-nose is the sole survivor of this worldwide flood, sniffing around for the next giant wave. If you endure swimming in these swampy waters, you may receive a reward. Once in a while, the blanket-waves bring you some lost treasures. It can be a sock, a headphone, or even a bracelet. However, if you lose the game, your face will be covered entirely with a fly-agaric pattern. But you have nothing to worry about, you are a gifted artist. In the morning you paint your face so well that nobody would notice Wassily Kandinsky’s painting under all those beige layers."

“Pss, Molly?”

“Who? Where? What?”

“I hear the syropy-sugary-smell, like a phantom of the sweetness scratches my belly and leaves the itchy claw marks.”

“Oh, dear. You cannot hear the smell.

Ah ja! I smell it too. It’s an energy drink. And beer. Mom must have had another drink on the roof and brought bottles here. Wait here quietly, I’ll find it.”

“It might be in my school backpack.”

“What’s on Earth is it doing there?”

“Mom sometimes confuses my backpack with a trash bin.”

“Yes, bottles were there. I put them out of the room.

Here, take a nose plug.”

“Thank you. Why does mom drink? Because she does not live like Adriana?”

“Yes. Because she does not live like Adriana. Now, close your eyes and sleep.”

"Molly,

how does smell work? Why are some scents as gentle as mom’s hand cream? It stands in our nostrils, like a neighbor who asks for some salt, not daring to go inside. But there are smells that smash the door like FBI agents. They roll inward, throw tears from the windows, and injure the inhabitants of the nose. And then there are ninja scents. The ones that are always here, hiding behind the back of innocent dust. We forget that those scents exist. Like the smell of this blanket.

You know,

Adriana’s mother washes not only bedspreads but also blankets every week. Her blanket is as soft as Fluffcula in zoology class. I’m telling you, our blanket is as hard as a wall in a doll’s house. And it smells like… like… Mrs. Johnson. Sometimes she leans over my desk to check my assignment, and her archers of death odor shoot at me. My Spartan-nose-hair lures her soldiers into the narrow nasal passage and suppresses massive attacks. Do you remember her? Always in a green dress, covered in chalk dust. Remember?

Look at those wrinkles on the blanket at your feet. They metamorphose into her ancient face, don’t they? Mrs. Johnson is so old, she must have been your teacher, and our mother’s, and our grandmother’s. Why does this teacher of all generations smell like our blanket?

I use the nose plug. Yeah, it works. I hear no smell. Good night!"

“Pss, Molly?”

“I swear by all the gods in this universe, I kill you if you don’t stop. It's almost sunrise!”

“But you woke up anyway.”

“To go to the toilet, not to the discussion club.”

“All right. Just one question! Do you think something lives inside my pillow?”

“Yes. Bed bugs. Good night. I am serious. I've put the earplugs in.”

“Do you have all kinds of plugs?

Molly…

why do you think there are bed bugs in my pillow? And where do they come from? Are they lonely wanderers who think my pillow is a small tavern? They open the cotton door with millions of hands and dive into a white room full of other creatures. They crawl across the cotton tables and order the crumbs of my head skin. The sound of clinking glasses and excited voices subsides as a creature in velvet boots crawls across the stage of feathers, right under my left ear. It has a harp for all its hands. He plays it and sings. Oh, how it sings! Do you hear that? The song is about love with shades of despair. And yet the owner of the best musical instrument is not this creature. It’s mom grinding her teeth, don’t you think?"

“Pss, Molly.

Is it sunrise? Have I won this night battle again? I am a real general with medals in the form of dark circles under my eyes.

Do you see the orange light? That egg yolk slides from cracked blinds into the red oven, eats pizza crumbs, shakes hands with Marquez, bows to Tolstoy, and helps Wilde keep a bookshelf ironically straight. Do you see that? It crawls further, to a chair, which back is always tilted forward, resembling a secret child of Igor and Quasimodo. The orange spot wiggles up the old wallpaper, across this thick history book with glued pages. The swarms of morning dust are thicker today. I don’t see my hands.

Molly, this orange does not look like sunshine.

Molly, I removed the noseplug. I cannot breathe.

Molly, it is fire.

Mom?

Auntie Thana?

Do you hear?

the fire whispers to us, our mattress was destined to become not a train but the grave of youth."