I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead

There’s a man in my bedroom. He’s hovering over me with a knife in his hand as I lay in bed. It’s as if he is floating above me with his arm up, ready to strike me right in my chest. His face is menacing. His lip is up in a snarl with a drizzle of spit in the corner of his mouth. His teeth are crooked and one is missing from the bottom row. His grey stubble either has black patches of hair or is covered in dirt. It’s hard to tell in the dark.

I can’t move. I lay there as if I am frozen to my mattress. I can feel sweat on my neck and my heart is pounding in my ears. I know this is the end. This is how I will die. He looks at me and smiles as he plunges the knife into my heart.

I jolt awake in my bed, gasping for the air that has escaped my lungs. I look around my room in the darkness trying to find the man that I saw. But I know he is not there. It was just a nightmare. One that I have had many times before. More so in the past few weeks. Same man, same knife, same ending. I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night. I have seen this man in my dreams many times throughout the years. I can still remember the first time I had this dream. I was a teenager in my attic bedroom. It scared the shit out of me that first time, and has since scared me just the same every time after. Back then I told my best friend about the dream and she told her mother. Her mother’s response was that I had demons around me and I needed to burn some sage in my bedroom to cleanse it. I fear there’s not enough sage in the world to get rid of the darkness that follows me. I’ve read that the people we see in our dreams are real people we have seen at some point in our lives. I don’t ever remember seeing this creepy ass guy in the real world.

When I feel like my heart rate has come down to a normal rhythm I get out of bed and go to my bathroom to splash some water on my face. I wipe the sweat off of my neck. Every time this happens, I wake up soaked. I look at myself in the mirror and see the dark circles under my eyes. They seem like they have been there forever, they are a part of me now and I’ve become accustomed to shrugging my shoulders when someone says ‘you look tired, Andrea.’ No shit! I am tired. These sleepless nights are happening more often and I can’t figure out why. A friend suggested that I go see a therapist but I roll my eyes at that thought. I don’t need someone to tell me I have issues; I know that I do. But what kind of issues cause these nightmares? I’m not sure I want to know.

I walk through my apartment to the kitchen. My eyes adjust quickly to the dark so I don’t put any lights on. When I get to the kitchen the moon streams through my window casting an eerie glow in the room. I open a cabinet and get a small glass. Then I open another cabinet and get the bourbon. I used to only take one shot to calm my nerves but after a few nights of that doing absolutely nothing I have now moved on to four or five shots in one glass. No point in pretending that I won’t drink that much. I take the first two slips slowly, letting the bourbon warm my insides. And then I gulp the rest in one shot hoping the faster it gets into my system, the faster it will start to work.

I look around my empty apartment and feel a heaviness in my chest. I am completely alone. When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to live by myself. Couldn’t wait to make my own money and do my own thing. But now, at thirty-six, and twelve years of living by myself, I’m over it all. Especially on nights like this one when the nightmares happen. I wish I had someone in my bed with me who would take me in their arms and comfort me. Someone to tell me I was okay and it was just a bad dream and nothing bad was going to happen to me. But I don’t and that’s my reality.

My other reality is that I’m not okay and I haven’t been for a while. My mental health is struggling. My anxiety is at an all time high. I’m constantly on edge waiting for something to happen. It’s no way to live.

I put my glass in the sink and make my way back to bed. I’m nowhere near drunk but the bourbon is settling into my system nicely. I feel calmer. And my eyes are a little heavy. I just want to close them and drift off into a peaceful sleep. I get back into bed, pull the covers up to my neck and let my head hit the pillow. I stare up at the ceiling and take a deep breath. I hold it for the count of four and exhale for the count of four. I do this a few times until I feel calm enough to try to sleep. I close my eyes and pray that I drift off.

‘You’re going to die,’ the voice whispers in my ear. ‘Your heart is going to stop in exactly two minutes and then you will be no more.’

‘No one loves you,’ another voice chimes in. ‘You’re a waste of space. You don’t need to live anymore.’

‘We’ll take you with us,’ the first voice says a little louder.

I jump out of bed this time and run to my bathroom, slamming the door behind me, trying to keep the voices away from me. I feel like I am half sleep-walking and half awake, if that’s even possible. I heard those voices clear as day. They were right next to me, almost sounding familiar but not really. Cartoonish witchy but also like my grandmother. I lean against the sink with my head down forcing myself to become completely awake. I don’t want to look in the mirror for fear of seeing someone behind me, which I know is absolutely ridiculous. There’s no one here but me, and the voices inside my head. I open the door slowly, just in case. I scan my room but, of course, I see nothing there but the things that belong in my bedroom. I look at the clock. 3:14am. I slept for a little over an hour after my last nightmare. I guess that’s something. I look at my bed but the thought of laying back down makes me uneasy.

Can you feel darkness? Can you feel evil spirits around you? Is it like the scene in the movie ‘Ghost’ when the little black shadows come for you? Are they all around me now? Oh my God, I can’t shut my brain off. I want it to stop. I just need something to make it stop. To make it all go away. I can’t live like this anymore. Has anyone ever died from lack of sleep? I wonder as I lean against my bathroom door, slide down to the floor and cry. With my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands I sob uncontrollably. I can’t stop, and maybe I don’t want to. Maybe my tears will release all of the dark shit that’s inside of me and release me from this pain I’m in every night. I cry for another half hour until the tears finally stop. I’m completely dried out. But I don’t get up. I sit on the floor of my bathroom for another forty minutes. My eyes are so heavy. The good part about crying is how tired it makes you feel afterward. I don’t want to go back to my bed. I simply lay down on my fluffy, blue bathmat, close my eyes, and try to go to sleep for the third time tonight.