Turn the clock face down.
Urinate.
Masturbate.
Ruminate.
Check the thermostat, put in earplugs. But the noise and heat are inside my head, driving worms of memory from their burrows.
If I could not sleep, could I shape shift and time travel? Holding a newborn goat on my lap . . . the pelagic solitude of albatross flight . . . sprawling onto the cool side of the bed-- all once pleasant but now filled with sickening emptiness. The kid was gasping for air, the bird tiring with no land in sight, the other side of this bed a mausoleum.
If I dreamed at night I had no memory of it, and as my sleep deteriorated my mind began to invent newspaper articles, phone conversations, errands and other details of my day. With great effort I was able to navigate the newly unverifiable world while at work. Colleagues became concerned, and I ultimately relented to efforts at help in the form of a prescription for sleeping pills.
A terrifying feeling, the now familiar back and forth of rumination and shallow sleep was overtaken by the hypnotic downward pull of the drug
The metallic slap of footsteps echoed through the cramped stairwell. The cool, cement must was replaced by humid summer air as I opened the door and stepped onto the rooftop of what appeared to be a warehouse on the edge of a city I did not know. It was night, and a bank of thunderheads was gathering over the lights of downtown. Cloud to cloud lightning lit the sky in staccato bursts, but without the accompaniment of thunder or wind.
I felt a woman's hand slip into mine. Before I turned, I knew it was X. It felt natural that she would be there, a tender familiarity rather than a surprise. I squeezed her hand and swung her in front of me. To see her was good. And it was her, from the spray of sun freckles across her nose to the way she broke eye contact and stared smiling at the hand she had placed over my heart. I was whole, serene and strong again.
"It's going to rain," she turned away from me and surveyed the flickering wall of clouds.
"Maybe. Who cares. " I pulled her back, close to me. My left hand found the crest of her hip as her head came to rest on my shoulder.
She whispered something I could not make out.
Awake again. Groggy, confused, desolate. Moaning, swatting at the light on the bedside table. Choking
