Narcolepsy
Linda stood on the edge of a cliff watching the waves burst against the rocks far below her feet. It felt like she had been here before—this same cliff with the same purpose to jump. The feeling of deja vu was overwhelming, making her want to take that step all the more. She had to escape this lie of a life. She shook her head, no, it’s not this life that's the lie, but her dreams. That was the problem, her dreams were far more real than her waking life and it scared her.
It had been three terrible nights since she had slept, and she knew it was the sleep deprivation that led her to this point, but she couldn't bring herself to care enough step back and go home.
The dreams started about a year ago, but they weren't nightmares in the literal sense of the word. In truth, they were the type of dreams that left her curled up under her blankets after her alarm went off, hoping that she could finish the story before having to get ready for the day. She would savor the dream during her waking hours, counting down the time until she could fall back asleep to continue from where she left off.
It was her in the dreams, in everything except name. It was her face, her body, and her memories, but all rolled into a life she never lived under the alias of Sarah. What made her love the dreams so much was the fact that it wasn't her life. In her imagination she had a daughter and a husband, things that she had always wanted as Linda but never had. So she would sleep, and live in a life that held more love and fulfillment than she had while awake.
None of her dreams repeated, tending to go in chronological, and in many of them, nothing really happened except mundane activities like cooking and cleaning. However, it wasn't those dreams that drove her to the sea, but the ones with David. He was the husband of her dreams, not just her dream husband. He was everything she had ever wanted, bad habits and all, and even though she had made him up, she loved him completely. Linda knew how crazy it was to love a fantasy, but the more she dreamed about her and him, the more he became ingrained in her heart and never left her mind during the daylight hours.
For the first couple of months of the dreams, they had mainly consisted of her and David when they met and started dating. She was around twenty-five in the dreams, and like any twenty something year old girl, she was boy crazy and smitten over the sweet, attractive guy she met in the coffee shop. David got her number and called her the next day to take her out, and it wasn't long after that they became serious in their relationship. Although they were just dreams in Linda's mind, every time David held her hand she could feel her heart beat faster. Every time he kissed her, she could hear herself give a soft moan in her sleep. He was far more than a dream in the way he made her react even in her unconscious mind. What he did to her was real, and the only reason she would wake was to sleep once more and feel him near her. The dreams became so powerful she found no reason to leave them.
For the next six months Linda rarely left her bed. She quit her job and lived only on the money she managed to put away in savings, never leaving her house except to buy desperately needed groceries. In those months, her dreams became her reality consuming everything.
Her love for him grew and one night as she dreamed, she found herself walking through a small park after one of their dates. It was a clear night with only a few stars poking through the tree tops and a soft breeze cooling off the night pleasantly. It was there, under an oak, that he proposed to her. She woke to tears wetting her pillow with her hand stretched out as if waiting for a ring to be slipped on her finger, and her mouth forming the word “yes.” As it sunk in that he wasn't really there, she curled in on herself, turning the once joyful tears into acute longing. If only she could see him immediately again, things wouldn't feel so bad, but she knew sleep was impossible for a while so she wept silently for things that were never hers to begin with.
While the next six months continued, so did her and David's romance. They were married in a small white church with only their family members present, and when she put the ring on his finger, she knew that he was the one she would love forever. She never wanted him to forget how much she loved him, so on the inside of his ring she had “LYFE” engraved in a beautiful cursive script. It meant “love you forever,” a saying they told each other often. Linda knew how cheesy it was to engrave his ring, but she felt it better to be over sentimental than have him ever question her love.
But everything changed one terrible night when Linda dreamt of having her baby girl. It was then that she truly comprehended how out of hand her life had become. When she woke the next morning after having dreamt of giving birth to her daughter, she found herself completely drained of strength while cradling one of her quilts in her arms as if it was a baby. The absolute feeling of loss at seeing only fabric broke her when nothing else could, and she realized that it would be better never sleep again than dream of something she would never have but wanted a thousand times more than the life had.
It was at that point when she started to keep herself awake by whatever means necessary; whether by exercising late into the night, drinking caffeinated drinks, or by watching what her mom called “test fest” movies that were loud enough to make sleep impossible, she would go one sleepless night after another. But when her body would finally succumb to sleep, she would dream of David and their house and their daughter, and every morning when she would wake she hated herself for wanting so desperately what wasn't real.
The dreams she once craved turned into personal nightmares that scared her more than any dream about an ax murderer could. It was a fear of forgetting who she was. It was fear of not being able to tell what was real anymore. And it was a fear of wanting a life that wasn’t her own.
As Linda stood on the edge, she thought back to the last dream she had—the one that was the direct cause for her being on the cliff.
She had struggled against sleep for almost 56 hours before her eyes finally lost the fight. That night she dreamt of David and her huddled in bed. He was holding so tight against his chest that it hurt, but it wasn't close enough to smother the emotional pain eating her away. Earlier that day they had found out their daughter, Peyton, had been struck by a car and died when she escaped from her teacher's hand and run across the street. In an instant they lost part of themselves, and they were left trying to find some anchor to hold on to that wasn't there. And as David held her, gently rocking her back and forth, he whispered in her ear over and over again as if trying to convince her as well as himself, “We'll get through this. We have to get through this. I love you.” But she never said anything back, just wept and wished to forget.
Linda had woken up shaking out of control. She knew there was no chance she would ever go back to that dream world now, so she forced herself to stay awake longer than she ever managed before. In her hollow, sleepless daze, she drove to the cliff and got out of the car to do the only thing she could think of to escape her dreams.
The wind started to pick up and the sun had finally set turning the cloud covered sky a dark foreboding blue. It was now or never, she thought, and took the step forward welcoming the rocks below.
A middle-aged man walked quickly through the empty halls as a page for Dr. Robinson came over the intercom. He stopped outside room 258 and watched as Dr. Grant finished up with the woman sedated on the bed.
“How is she?” He asked the doctor when he closed the door.
“She's doing alright, all things considered. We found her standing on a chair today, but couldn't get her down before she jumped. She had a rough landing and fell into a table and ended up with a few bruises, but, thankfully, nothing more serious.”
The man shook his head, “How many times has she tried that now?”
“A dozen or so. It's strange though, usually right before we find her on a chair, or table, or her bed, she has her really bad days, but after she jumps something changes and she becomes calm. Everything about her seems to relax and the only real issue we face is her Linda persona.”
He winced at the mention of Linda. It was a name his wife had always loved because she felt it had more personality than Sarah, her own name. But after their daughter's death, she had retreated into herself taking on the identity of Linda who never had to face the loss of a child. It hurt every time he saw her, and she stared passed him without any recognition even though they had been married for ten years.
He remained quiet for a while before asking Dr. Grant the question that had been on his mind for a while, “Does she ever say my name?”
The doctor looked at him as if he knew his pain. “I'm sorry, David, but she doesn't talk much anymore. But in her sleep she frequently mumbles the word 'life.' I don't know if that is significant to you or not, but it's something that her mind obviously finds important enough to repeat it.”
A sad smile touched David's mouth as he twisted his wedding ring where “LYFE” was etched on the band.
Prose Poem
Hammers and StringsSilent, motionless the ivory awaits my fingers to bring forth the music it was meant to make. A grandfather among children, this hundred year old instrument shows its age in the broken bench and out of tune keys, but like a good bottle of wine, it has only gotten better through time. I've seen it differently through the stages of my life: a mystery, a toy, a hassle, a friend. I may have been the one to touch the keys, but they have touched me right back; and I can't help but wonder, how many other people have felt this way in the past century?
Swim Suit
It is my favorite one because of its eccentricity. The fabric looks like the rainbow of color when oil rests on water, or the sheen on the outside of a bubble. I found it on the clearance rack because no one would buy it, but I fell in love with it immediately and wore to every practice for a year. Now seven years old, it hangs in tatters in my closet. I still use it for drag, sometimes, even though the straps have stretched out leaving it baggy in the most uncomfortable places.
Pineapple Plant
I named it Samson because in six months I was going to chop its top off and eat it. I felt it was the best thing I ever bought until a month and a half later it decided to die. The stem shriveled up and the fruit toppled over filling by room with a sickening sweet decaying smell, but I didn't have the heart to throw it away. I think it knew my plans, so it died before I could take a knife to it. Maybe next time I'll call it Delilah.
Zune
You are my life, my muse, my second love. Your music filled the silence, the space between each shuddering breath, the void in my life caused by the slow but destructive burning of my first love, my family. You took my sorrow and painted it in lyrics, then played new songs with new words helping me see through other people's poetry that my first love had not been lost but risen from the ashes: a phoenix.
Quilt My Mom Made Me
Blue, like the water I lived in for ten years. But the flannel is not just one shade of blue, water is never just one shade. There are greens and purples mixed in showing the ever changing personality of water. The fabric shows more than just the color of water, it also shows the shapes water forms like the piece with waves, or the one containing bubbles, or the one that reminds me of swirling currents in open water. But my favorite looks like the calm, ice green of the ocean in the Caribbean—like the photo I took while at the Grand Caymans of the bay. It is this dry water in the comfort of my room that combines my two favorite worlds: the pool and my bed.
Hope you liked them daddy :)
