A CASE OF INSOMNIA
The night has come. Tiptoed in without a sound, he just looked up
and there it was – blackness. Tonight, there would be no moon to give a hint of
light to the surroundings beyond his bedroom window where he lay waiting to see
if perhaps he could return to the other side… please.
No, it would be another night of
tossing and turning and overthinking that would eventually drive him to
madness again and again. This was becoming his life now.
The days were where he found his
slumber and the nights his anguish. He would tell them all that he suffered
from insomnia, but it was a lie. He
slept fine during the light of day because his mind was too weak to spend
another moment in the spotlight of faraway laughter, the mulling about of the
neighbors as they visited over fences and helped each other out with project
after project, the distant sound of music playing and kids enjoying an
afternoon swim.
Not one more day could be endured
of the immeasurable pain of loneliness and despair – the game of smiles, nods
and “have a great day” resounding in his ears like fingernails on a blackboard;
making his skin crawl.
What the hell is a great day? Define that, please… Is it being alive, then I’m having one I
suppose, he would think to himself. No,
being alive does not make the day great – it just makes the day.
He preferred sleeping during the
hours when most people would be alive and having great days, so he wouldn’t
have to really see what a great day looks like anymore – he knew.
A great day is filled with
meaningful relationships where people come together to enjoy each other’s
company and talk, sip tea, share lunches, talk about their wives and their
children and their jobs… maybe play the nines – buddy up for a game, feel the
sun on their faces and rejoice with a “It’s so good to be alive”.
He no longer saw his kids, had long
lost his wife years ago to another man while he worked to make a living, so
they could continue… towards what? Going where?
He had hated golf back then and
most every other sport, never was ‘one of the guys’, preferred to spend his
free time with his family though his family was always busy doing life.
It began to set in towards the end
of their marriage – the unfocused and half-assed efforts at work that
eventually got him fired. The long naps on the couch after mowing the lawn and
having a light lunch. Waking up for dinner, then some television that only
served to become background noise to his constant thoughts of ending it all,
then another nap.
She would summon him to bed but
then that stopped too once she realized that he would not sleep at night – the
tossing and turning would just keep her awake and she had a life to wake up to
– and it did not include him.
He sat there on the couch, thumbing
through channels of religious rhetoric, home buying networks, infomercials that
were an hour-long, and reruns of old black and whites he’d seen a hundred
times. So, he would eventually turn the television off and sit there in the
darkness, his mind racing with thought after thought and nothing truly worth
thinking about.
She left in the fall of that year
when the nights would be so much longer.
The internet provided some comfort
as other insomniacs complained about the lack of sleep and the frustration of
not being able to find rest… were they any different than he? Were they just making up excuses for a life
not worth being present for in the light of day?
Night people are different – they
are depressed, anxious, unhappy, unfulfilled, lifeless souls – or they were
people with various illnesses; mental and physical.
Didn’t make any difference to him,
he had found some respite in being among people like himself. All these people
were lost, out of rhythm with the rest of the world, out of sorts, out of their
minds, out there where no one really knows them, and no one really knew him.
There were many nights when he
thought about getting the gun out of the drawer, inserting a bullet (just one)
and inserting the cold hard end of it into his mouth. He would make a game of
it, catch a bit of a thrill, and try to revive some of that excitement, that
verve he lacked.
Tonight, he would begin the game
and the excitement mounted unexpectedly as he opened the drawer, took out his
twenty-two, inserted a hollow tip into the chamber and spun it around.
Slowly, his hand shaking, he
inserted the gun into his mouth and took a deep breath. He pulled the trigger –
click – nothing. Tonight, he would live
and think about how close he came to be putting an end to it all. The thrill shook him to his core and produced
a long-forgotten feeling between his legs – it felt good.
He decided to take advantage of this
opportunity and pleasured himself for the first time in what seemed like a
lifetime ago.
The next day came and went in a
blur and again that evening he picked up his gun and inserted it into his mouth
– click – one more night to live and one more night of incredible orgasm at his
own hand.
And the same continued night after
night for four nights. On the fifth
night he took the gun and inserted it into his mouth, pulled the trigger and
felt the pleasure of his last orgasm as the bullet made its way into his brain
and out the other side.
They found him several weeks later
lying in his own dried up blood and cum – the stench of his rotting body had
alerted the neighbor who reported a foul odor emanating from his house. The
neighbors had all gathered ‘round to try to find the source when one thought
perhaps they should call someone. They
called his ex-wife… who, along with the children made the gruesome discovery.
Now his ex-wife takes sleeping meds
to get to sleep at night and block out the horror of that reality and, so she
can function normally, or as near normal as possible, day after day.
One of the kids is slowly losing
her mind and no one is even noticing – she keeps smiling and nodding and
offering “have a good day” to everyone.
The other child, he is sleeping
during the day to escape the horror of that moment of discovery, now all too
aware of how loud the sun is, how hard it is to escape the light of day and
hide his feelings from prying questions… he gets up, goes to school, comes home
and takes a nap until dinner is ready, eats around the peas on the plate
despite his mother’s insistence that he eat his vegetables, then returns to his
room where he turns on the television and listens to the noise without paying
any attention… as he returns to another late nap.
Everyone goes to bed and now he is
awake and alone. The freedom to not be seen in the dark, no questions, no
pretenses, just the night. He turns on the computer and catches up with his
other insomniac buddies online. They will never know his reality. They will
never ask him the questions that need to be answered. They will never see him
cry or tear at his hair or cut himself just to feel alive!
Cutting himself, yes, that feels
good and always turns him on in some perverse yet totally acceptable way. Cut,
cut deep, watch the blood flow over his hand and onto his dick as he jerks off
to completion and feels absolutely alive!
Each night the cuts get longer and
deeper and a little closer to where people might be able to see them now. He had managed for months to keep his cuts
high enough that his shirt sleeve would hide the wounds but now he was needing
more to feel good, to enjoy the moment of pleasure – just one small moment in
his hell where he could feel alive and find release.
Tonight, he took the Exacto knife
and placed a new blade into it – closed it tight with an extra twist – placed
it at the base of his thumb and pushed it in as deep as it would go. Then he
watched himself pull the embedded blade up to the blue line that pulsed excitedly
at his wrist – he was alive and extremely turned on by the experience as he
continued to follow the blue line up the entire length of his arm to his elbow
where he stopped to watch the blood shooting forth from his arm in waves along
with some strange pleasure he felt in his groin… then everything stopped. The pain of existence stopped, the knowing
stopped, the pictures in his mind stopped, the pretending stopped, the excuses
stopped, the insomnia stopped and there would be no morning.
His mother found him. His sister heard the scream and rushed in to
a new scene where the blood smelled fresh and musky and her brother lie pale
upon the floor with an Exacto knife hanging out of his arm and a strange smile
on his face. The room was covered in blood as if someone took a can of paint
and threw it against the walls and onto the floor.
She didn’t scream – she simply took
her mother’s hand and led her to the couch and made the 911 call. She smiled as
she greeted the officers, nodded to them and told them he was upstairs in his
room. She sat silent next to her mother
who was also silent, and both waited until the body was removed and then
proceeded to answer the myriad of inane questions asked by the officers.
When it was finished, she smiled
again, nodded her head and offered “have a nice day”.
She knew that it was never going to
end – mother would soon take her life with the pills and she would be all
alone. There really was no reason to be
all alone – her family was somewhere out there in the darkness and she knew she
wanted to follow her mother there too, if that is what she would indeed do.
Her stepfather had stopped coming
home after work soon after her father died, and this would just make him step
further away… no, it was just her and her mother now and she would not be left
alone.
She watched night after night,
counting the pills her mother took and then quietly hiding the bottle, so she
could try to sleep.
Then it happened, mother had taken
more than half of the pills in the bottle and she knew she was on her way to
the dark side. She emptied the rest of the pills, along with all the other
pills she could find in the house, into her little hand and took mouthful after
mouthful until she fell into nothingness.
It was done. The family was now together again perhaps or
maybe they are forever lost to each other – no one here knows –it was so tragic
and unnecessary they would say.
Eventually, the subject was retired to the once a year anniversary where
the neighbors would gather and tell the story to their children as if it were
an urban myth made up by some idiot to scare them.
The sun comes out every day and the
neighbors greet each other with their smiles and waves – the sounds of dogs
barking and children playing fill the air. You can hear music in the distance
and the smell of chlorine from the pool full of children at play in the yard
two doors down.
Tom and his buddies have gone to
the golf club for a game of nine to get some exercise and talk about their
jobs, their wives and kids and the newest gadgets they have acquired. Everyone smiles and nods their heads to one
another and offer each other a good day.
Meanwhile, the insomniacs wonder
whatever happened to that one guy who called himself “Just Joe” on his profile
and that other kid who came on late at night, what was his name? He was cute
but strange and some said he was a cutter.
Oh well, hope they are okay while the rest of us talk all night about
our insomnia, our problems, the injustices in our relationships and the world
in general.
In a strange way, we are still
smiling at each other, nodding our heads and wishing each other a good day… but
this in the virtual world where no one puts guns into their mouths, cuts the
length of their arteries or takes handfuls of pills. No, here in the virtual world of insomniacs
people just disappear, and it is assumed they have found their rhythm again and
have rejoined the day people.
We’ll miss them.
M TERESA CLAYTON
