Sleep Diary - part 2

https://www.abctales.com/story/noo/sleep-diary-part-1

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Day 9 – How would you rate the quality of your sleep last night? 

              1       2       3        4         5                                                                                           

              V. poor                           V. good

Thanatos – Nathan thinks it’s all here in Ros’s makeup – the perfectly painted-on face she presents to the world.  Who she actually is at her core.  Not that it really matters as he doesn’t need to know who she is. He just needs to be held by her so he can sleep and forget.

She’s older, maybe late fifties, early sixties.  In his sessions with her, he’s asked if she can keep her clothes on while they’re sleeping and she’s complied of sorts by wearing a night-dress come tee-shirt with a pink unicorn on the front of it.

Nathan leaves his clothes on the ottoman at the bottom of the bed and sleeps naked.  He wants to show Ros he has no desire for her whatsoever.  This is only about sleep and he feels his nakedness avows his faithfulness to Erin. 

Ros’s room (her bedroom?  Her place of work?) is painted a processed meat pink and the bed sheets are checked, brushed cotton, like the ones Nathan’s grandmother had when he was child.  This seems to him both creepy and entirely appropriate.  Before he goes to sleep, he sets the alarm on his phone and the first time, Ros had laughed.  “Don’t worry, I won’t charge you extra if you run into a fourth hour.”  But Nathan had said, no, it wasn’t about the money.  He just needed to get home on time.

Sometimes he wonders whether Ros actually sleeps herself while he does and he guesses he’ll never know because he sleeps so deeply.  A couple of times ago, he’d faced Ros and she lay there with her eyes closed.  He’d had chance to study her face – its lines, its scars round her mouth and chin.  With her eyes shut, he thought the kindness had gone out of her face and she simply looked tired and old.  The kindness, which he is sure is there (in the tender way she smooths the sheet over his shoulders, the cup of tea waiting for him on waking) lives in the warm brown of her eyes.

Sleep with Ros starts and ends with the sharp, pine smell of the room’s air freshener and the moans and men’s voices from adjoining rooms.  When Nathan’s session is over, he puts the money on the ottoman and leaves Ros still in bed.  He says goodbye to her, usually with his next time booked in.  He gets on the bus, home to his sleeping wife, wondering whether Ros or his dead baby ever even existed.

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Eros – what’s real and what’s not is becoming more blurred.  The balance of things has changed and I’m working less and sleeping more, if that’s possible.  The bed and its weeks-unchanged sheets smell only of me and no longer of Nathan.  Do I live in the house on my own?  I wait up for him as long as I can, but I’m so tired I can’t wait for long.

I hear him sometimes - downstairs and in the bathroom - but I rarely see him.  He’s a house-wraith, a ghost husband.  I wonder where he goes when he’s not here?  I woke from a dream the other morning, convinced I heard the baby crying and Nathan picking her up to comfort her, her cries turning to little sighs of pleasure.  It was so clear to me, I got out of bed to join them, but by the time I was at the top of the stairs, I knew the house was empty and silent.

My sleep paralysis holds me unmoving and heavy, like an obese, unwanted lover. I’m pinned down in bed, motionless, but seeing and hearing everything in this world and I think, in other worlds too.  In this state, there’s often the sound of humming in the bedroom and grinding, metallic voices who seem like they’re trying to give me messages that I can’t quite catch.

I usually sleep on my side in bed, facing away from the door and I’m often aware of shadows on the walls that look like they’re moving quickly or even dancing.  Sometimes, I can make out faces that seem to form out of the shadows.  Faces with red, glittering, intelligent eyes.  Other times, I know something is in the room with me, standing behind me, leaning over the bed.  One time, it spoke to me.  “Let me into bed with you”, it said, and then I woke up again.  What will it take to be cured of this?

This morning, I’m in my usual, paralysed state, but unusually, I’m lying on my other side, facing towards the door.  I know Nathan is in the room with me and he looks into my face.  I’m awake and try to speak to him, but of course, nothing comes out of my mouth.  I feel him brush my hair from my forehead and I try to smile, but I can’t move my muscles to do this.

I see he’s moved towards the end of the bed and I notice he’s taken his phone out of his pocket.  I hear his side of the conversation perfectly.  “Hi Ros.  I know this is not what I usually do and hope it’s not a hassle that I’m contacting you like this.  It’s just I’m so…so tired.  Anyway, I kind of wondered if it would be ok to come over tonight if you’ve got a slot free?  I can pay extra if it’s a problem?  Yes thanks - that would be great. Yes, see you later.”

Then, I see him walk out of the bedroom door and a few minutes later, I hear the front door open and close.  Then, I wake up again.

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Thanatos and Eros – in Erin’s waking dreams, the mummers continue their performance.  The fight between the hero and villain has already happened and on the floor, Saint George, the hero, lies cruelly slain – or is he sleeping?  Slasher, the villain, stands over him, his sword dripping blood onto Saint’s George’s chest.

All looks hopeless and dark until weaving his way through the audience, hope arrives in the unlikely form of a small, misshapen, frankly shifty-looking man.  “Move out of the way, losers”, he shouts, “For I am a doctor and I come to cure!”.  Whatever the doctor has brought in his comically large bottle is the good shit because in no time at all, Saint George is on his feet again, as good as new; and Slasher is skulking, defeated-villain-like in the corner.

The devil smiles broadly as he takes payment from the audience (never accuse the devil of being anything other than a gentleman) and he gathers the mummers together in a circle.  The undefinable mummer with the sack-cloth over his head looks for a moment as though he’s going to take this - his disguise - off.  But he stops suddenly, as if he’s thought better of it, and instead he clasps the rope-tie tighter round his neck.

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https://www.abctales.com/story/noo/sleep-diary-part-3