The Sleep

The house shook with an almighty bang, waking him from his slumber.

‘Are you still asleep?!’ she cried out, rolling her eyes. She stormed off into the kitchen. He lay there, his naked back sticking to the leatherette sofa. He groaned involuntarily as he shifted his weight into a sitting position and the room slowly blurred into shape around him. Empty coffee cups and crisp packets littered the table whilst the TV was quietly playing some tea-time quiz show. He rubbed his eyes and looked at her. She stood arms folded in disgust observing the chaos of the living room and him at the centre. He was squinting up at her, his skinny frame still clothed in the grey joggers he’d worn for the past four days, his brown hair sticking up in angles and, a growing beard fading to stubble up his cheeks.

‘You could have cleaned up, at least.’, she snarls. He shrugs, ‘I’m sorry I don’t know what happened.’

‘What happened is you’ve slept all through the day again.’ He didn’t know what to tell her or even how to tell her so he looked at her blankly. This infuriated her even more, ‘You’re driving me crazy, clean your shit up!’ she roared and stomped up the stairs.

He sighed and felt behind him for a faded blue t-shirt, pulling it over his head, his nose wrinkling from the dried sweat smell coming off it. He slowly collected the detritus that had accumulated throughout the day into the kitchen where there was a pile of washing up on the sideboard. He vaguely remembered her muttering under her breath as she left the house that morning, that he could wash it up ‘if he could be bothered’. He realized, thinking back throughout the past couple of weeks, that he really couldn’t. His energy felt like it had been sucked out of him and dragging himself down the stairs in the morning was about as far as his energy felt like it could feasibly take him. He turned on the hot water tap, poured in a squirt of acid yellow washing up liquid and watched it fill up the bowl slowly with steaming hot water. He knew that instinctively he should put some cold in but the urge to just feel that sensation, feel anything, made him impulsively place his hand into the water. He swore viciously and quickly pulled it out. His hand rapidly turned red raw, but he smiled crookedly, at least he could still feel something. He cooled the water down and began the washing up.

‘At least you’re doing something.’ Her voice came from the doorway, startling him, he hadn’t heard her come downstairs. He continued with what he was doing. ‘You lazy bastard, why didn’t you do that this morning? And then you could be doing the hoovering that I also asked you to do... ‘

‘I’ll do that after this.’ he mumbled.

‘Damn right you will, some of us actually have jobs you know, when we get home we don’t want to be doing more work.’

It was a nasty jibe. He’d told her he’d lost his job two weeks ago. She, always thinking the worst of him, just assumed he’d been fired. He kept washing the mug in his hand, but it was clean. He felt the anger rising as she continued to berate him.

‘I get up early.’ she continued, ‘I buy the shopping, I feed you, I pay the bills and the rent now!’ She raised her hands in exasperation, “Have you even tried to get another job? Not from what I can see!”, He moved onto the next mug.

‘How can you even be fired from a job like that? Bloody shelf stacker, till worker. How crap do you have to be to get fired from a job like that?’ she sneered. His hand had started shaking. He didn’t trust himself to place the mug on the drying rack.

‘I bet you dipped your hand in the till, didn’t you?’ she said slyly, ‘You thieving…’

‘SHUT THE FUCK UP!’ he roared, turning violently and the mug smashed on the floor, a pool of soapy water spreading across the tiles towards her.

‘You what?!’ she aggressively replied. She stood in shock. He never shouted. He had always been the quiet one, letting any barrage of comments wash over him. She now saw that he was literally shaking with rage, his blue eyes wild and focused right on her. She took a step back, he was a lot taller than her and even with his skinny frame, she knew him to be a lot stronger.

‘You heard!’ he said breathing heavily, ‘You don’t know everything, you know.’

She snorted incredulously. She couldn’t help it.

He paused a moment, ‘You know what, forget it’. His shoulders seemed to slump and his breathing became more regular, calmer, ‘You wouldn’t care anyway,’ He turned back to the washing. She watched him, her little brother. The one that everybody always liked, the quiet, calm good-natured man that seemed to get on with everyone.

She, on the other hand, knew not everybody liked her. Some others said it to her face. She’d always spoken before she thought. She knew she was right though. He had lost his job; he hadn’t been to work in weeks and he just seemed to sleep all day or stare vacantly at the TV. She wasn’t wrong about his laziness; it was plain to see. Why didn’t he realize why she was so frustrated? Of course she cared, she wanted him to get a job didn’t she? Get his life back on track.

‘I do care,’ she said, ‘I want you to get back on your feet.’

He laughed but there was no humour in it. ‘It wouldn’t matter if I got another job’

‘Why not?’ she felt her anger rise again, ‘You need a job to make money, you can’t just loaf around this house all your life.’

‘Why not?’ he snapped back, ‘It’s not like I have much of that left.’

She felt herself blink. What was he on about? Was he depressed? She understood being a bit upset about losing a job but really.

‘Suicide?’, she said ‘Really? Are you really going to top yourself over one shitty job?’

He looked at her, shook his head and pushed past her into the lounge to grab a letter hidden underneath a pile of magazines.

He held it out for her. She looked at him confused and then took it.

She saw a familiar blue three letter logo. The hospital address and the appointment for the Oncology Department. The appointment was for three weeks before.

‘Oncology’ she paused ‘isn’t that…?’

‘Cancer’, he slumped with dejection onto the sofa. His arms hung limp over his knees as he stared at the wall. His sister in contrast started to look more terrified as the truth dawned on her.

‘I have two… maybe three months to live’ he said in a monotone voice. ‘I’ve had to take sick leave from work.’

His sister was thrown through a loop. Uncertainty rife in her eyes until they met with the very suddenly gaunt figure of her brother, then the words came. ‘I’m sorry.’, she said quietly, sitting next to him and putting an arm around his shoulders. The sudden shock of contact opening the dam of tears he had held back for weeks.

‘I don’t know what to do!’ he wailed. A shrill sound in his voice pierced the air as he sobbed ‘I just don’t… I don’t know!’. His emotion, breaking up anything he was trying to say, compelled him to lean his head on his sister’s shoulder.

She, on the other hand tried so hard to stop her tears, only coming when the thought came that she was glad she wasn’t in his shoes. The sudden thought revolting her as well as giving a feeling of relief. Tears ran down her cheeks as she held her sibling, kissing him on the top of his head. ‘We’ll get through this’ she murmured in his ear. Rocking her brother in her arms as the sun set outside the increasingly darkening room.