Fear.
Paralysing, primordial panic. It grips me, slithering like a snake around my legs, rooting me to the spot more efficiently than any weights ever could. I am lightheaded, delirious even, in the midst of an out-of-body experience as the darkness envelopes me in a single savage swoop. Sweat springs to the surface of my skin, my heart strains against my chest, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breath. . .
Twisting in my bedsheets. Fumbling in the blackness. Savagely beating my stack of books to the ground as I wave my arms, my motions wild and erratic, hands extended towards the bedside table. My fingers wrap themselves around the lamp and crawl, spider-like, upwards, pressing with all their might against the switch.
Light floods the room. My sheets are soaked, my body clammy and cold. I blink the tears from my eyes as my gaze alights on the bedroom door. The deadbolt is fastened, the lock is secure, and the alarms have not been triggered. The window, locked and barred, is in a similar undisturbed state.
I rest my head on my pillow. I do not turn out the light. I do not sleep tonight.
Imagine you are twenty-two years old. You, the Communications major from a middling university, new to the small city whose public library is in need of a secretary. You wake up every morning at seven-thirty to go jogging. You get to work by nine. You are home at five-thirty. You watch a movie while eating dinner. You read. You sleep, with the door open and the lights off.
What is a life? A career, friends, hobbies? Well, you may lack that first attribute of self-actualisation, but as time goes by you begin to develop the latter two. You join a gym and you begin having lunch with the girls from work and you take cooking classes at the community centre. Things are finally beginning to come together.
He is watching.
The apartment could be nicer, but even in this city a secretary would be optimistic to want anything more than a ground floor one bed, one bath in the heart of a sprawling complex of residential buildings. The neighbours are friendly and the rent is cheap and your apartment has thick cement walls that allow for guilt-free usage of the speakers you got for your birthday.
He is waiting.
Your cooking improves, in that cramped kitchenette with the small window that you open when the room grows uncomfortably warm. You stir pots and you dice vegetables and once you succeed in brewing the most delicious chicken noodle soup you’ve ever tasted, if you do say so yourself. You ladle the leftovers into a container and store it in the refrigerator for tomorrow. You sleep, with the door open and the lights off.
The window. The open window in your kitchenette, the one that you forgot to close. Stupid girl.
The window is small and he is not, but he still manages to squeeze into the apartment. You always prided yourself on being a light sleeper, and so when he lands on the floor with a soft thump, you are roused. Eyes open, bleary, adjusting to the darkness. A ray of moonlight falls across the living room, outlining his hulking silhouette, a hungry shadow that has no business being in your home.
He is upon you.
You shouldn’t have fought, says the police officer the next day as you write your statement with trembling hands. You are humiliated, in a torn nightgown stained with blood, surrounded by uniformed strangers who treat your body like a crime scene. He had a knife, the police officer reminds you, as though you were not the one to tell him this. You shouldn’t have fought. Look at what good it did you. You cannot reply. Your throat is raw from the screams it issued forth, screams that fell against the thick cement walls and were lost.
The water is clear when it hits your head, pink when it spirals into the drain. You sit in the shower for several hours, until you are wrinkled and bloated. It hurts to wear clothes, it hurts to walk, it hurts to lie down. There is something dead in the depths of your stomach, something that was throttled and maimed and murdered, that still exists as a shell, a weight, a reminder. A cross to bear.
He is caught.
At cooking class, you learned new words, like mince and blanch and fricassee. At court, you receive expanded definitions of words you already know, like stalker and assault and custodial sentence. In the middle of the judge’s parting phrases, you suddenly feel sick and leave the room to vomit in the hallway bin.
He is gone.
You have bars placed over the bedroom and kitchen windows. You stop jogging. You withdraw from cooking class. You meet your friends in the daylight, in public places. You think this will be enough. You sleep with your door open and your lights off.
But when you close your eyes, you see that silhouette, alight in a single radiant moonbeam, standing in your doorway, a scene stamped on the backs on your eyelids, unescapable, melded into your very flesh.
You buy the deadbolt. You install alarms. You sleep with the door closed and the light on.
I am not afraid of the dark.
I am afraid of the possibilities of the dark, of the creatures for which it provides shelter.
I am afraid of the things that appear in the light of the moon in places they have no business being.
Submitted July 02, 2015 at 10:54AM by _pancaste_ http://ift.tt/1Nyn6Vi nosleep
No comments:
Post a Comment