Stolen Sleep

After staring at the screen for five minutes, I realized she was still speaking to me. “Huh?” She smiled her tight smile and repeated, “I said how have you been sleeping? Any better after increasing the dosage of your trazodone?” I pretended to think and replied, “Yeah I think a bit. I guess.” As she continued droning on, I pretended to listen. I hate Telehealth appointments anyway. I’d much prefer to see my doctors in person, however I’ve come to realize that it’s just near impossible these days. I used to be honest with her. At least as honest as I’ve ever been with a psychiatrist. My sleeping habits have been a topic of conversation for the last five appointments I’ve had, but I can’t tell her the truth this time. I can’t tell her about what I see.

  Picking up my prescription from the pharmacy was about the same as it always is. I pretend I don’t know the pharmacist and he pretends he doesn’t know me. At least I think he does, it’s a small town but he might just not care enough to remember the faces that come up to his counter. He asks me if I have any questions, and of course I don’t. Sometimes the meds feel useless and I skip them, and after the weight of the day, it feels like it’s surely one of those nights. My cat Wendy greets me as I walk in and set my keys on the table. After eating a quick dinner and feeding the cat, I choose to turn in early. Not that it will matter. I think on average I get two hours of sleep nightly. I’ve tried journaling before bed, reading, no screens, setting the temperature to 65 degrees, and whatever else was in the study my psychiatrist sent me. I might as well start praying to any God who might answer the call. My head hits my pillow at 8 p.m. and I feel my eyes start to shut after a few hours of tossing and turning.

They shoot open with a burning sensation and that’s when I see her. Standing in the corner is a woman. I continue my routine, wiggling my toes, pinching myself, and like every night I come up with the same conclusion: I am not dreaming and it is not sleep paralysis. So, logically, the only option left is that she’s a ghost. She never moves out of the corner and never makes a sound. Every night I lie back and pretend I don’t see or notice her. Tonight I choose to do something different. I speak. “Why are you doing this to me?” Her messy long black hair continues to cover her face as she looks down and I inhale anticipating her answer. Minutes pass, maybe longer, until I gather the courage to ask again. “Why are you doing this to me? Did I know you in a past life? Was this house yours while you were alive? Please…I just want to sleep.” I realize as I touch my face that I’m crying. I’m crying to a ghost that’s been tormenting me for months. I don’t know how long I cry for, but I don’t stop when she starts moving. This is the first time I’ve seen her move. She walks with a limp and is barefoot. Her dirty white dress drags on the ground slowly as she comes near me with something in her hand. I grip my sheets and try not to move as she makes her way to my bedside, and I stop sobbing when I realize what she sets down on my nightstand. An orange bottle. One I’m too familiar with. She lifts her head, her hair still obscuring her face and I understand what she’s commanding me to do. With shaky hands, I reach for the cup of water I keep on my nightstand and the bottle, and take a pill. After setting them back down I assume she’ll dissipate, or walk back to her corner, or do whatever it is ghosts do, but she doesn’t. She reaches her hand out. Her arm is pale and her fingernails are caked in mud in a way that makes me wonder if she dug herself out of a grave. She places her arm on mine and I can’t help but scream. I scream long and hard, then everything goes black.

I wake up the next morning shaking. That had to have been a dream. There’s no way it was real. My arm feels heavy and it burns where I remember her touching me and I’m too afraid to look. Avoiding the mirror in my closet, I throw on a sweatshirt and head into the kitchen. I hear Wendy meowing while the coffee is brewing. “One second”, I say exhausted. “Just let me finish this then I’ll let you out”. To the dismay of some, my cat is an indoor-outdoor cat. I don’t let her leave the yard, and she just likes to eat the grass so I see no problem with it. After letting her outside and sitting on the porch, she happily trots to her favorite spot she likes to go. I’ll never understand her whimsy. As I watch, I take in the fact that there’s a patch of small flowers over at Wendy’s spot. Only at Wendy's spot. To her disappointment, I scoop her up to bring her back inside. “I’ll call someone to do some yard work for you baby”, I tell her impatiently, “I don’t know if those flowers are kitty friendly or not and the last thing I need is you getting sick.”

After a quick phone call and a lawn guy booking later, I settled into the rest of my day. With the events of last night I’m thankful for this day off work. I tackle my long list of chores, answer some emails, and watch some TV. I do my best to keep finding things to stay busy to keep my mind off of the approaching sunset with an understanding that soon I’ll have to go to sleep. I’m sure I could pull an all nighter easily, but the bags under my eyes and my lead filled legs heavily protest the idea. Before I know it, I’m feeding Wendy and making myself a late dinner. After cleaning up I walk slowly to my room. The battle inside my head is raging between the left and right side of my brain. Unfortunately for my nerves, logic wins as I settle into bed. I take my meds early this time in hopes of avoiding my nightly visitor, since last night that seemed to be her goal. Time passes and my eyelids start to droop, and while I think about fighting it as a last ditch effort, I ultimately give up and let the darkness take me.

The mix of emotions I feel when I open my eyes to my room is immediate. I feel fear, frustration, and anger. Unlike all of the other nights I sit up in my bed with a huff and look in the corner to see her yet again. “I don’t understand,” I start, “I took my meds. I did everything right when it comes to stupid sleeping habits. I…” Trailing off I look at her. Her head is held high and her hair is parted. She’s beautiful, or was beautiful. Sporting the features of a porcelain doll, she holds my eye contact. I search for traces of familiarity and come to the understanding that I don’t know her. With her long back hair out of the way and her beauty shining through, I look up slightly to see that her hair was hiding a wound on her forehead, almost like someone took a bat to it. Even with the wound, and the mud that seems to have traveled from her fingernails and up her arms, she’s still beautiful. She gives me a small smile and whispers one word; "Tomorrow." After I blink, she’s gone. A pit forms in my stomach as I repeat what she said. I roll the word around in my mouth and it tastes bitter in my confusion. Laying back down, I find that even in my state of turmoil, it’s easier to fall back asleep than it has been in a long time.

Morning comes with a knock on the door. I jump out of bed and pass Wendy staring at her food bowl on the way. I smile with relief at the yard guy and explain the flowers and my cat's habit of eating grass. After reassuring me that he’ll remove them he goes about his work, and I go about mine. I feed Wendy and decide to change into something a bit more presentable to the outside world, and declare that today is an errands day. The yard is too loud to get any work done from home, and my fridge’s barren state is a bit sad to see. After being in the car for about twenty minutes, I get a phone call that I begrudgingly answer. “Ma’am this is Alfonso” he states in a shaky voice. “Yes Alfonso, how can I help you? Did you have a question about the yard?” “Um…no,” he replies, “I’m just uh I just know this wasn’t you and now that I’m calling I don’t think I should”. Confused, I respond, “Did something happen?” He sighs deeply and his next words chill me to my core. “Ma’am digging up the flowers proved difficult. I went a bit deeper than I normally do and found something I had to call the police about.” I pulled my car over to the side of the road carefully. “Alfonso” I slowly say, “please tell me what you found”. “A body ma’am. I would come home if I were you. The police are on their way”. The sound of silence after he hangs up the phone weighs heavily in the car. It couldn’t be. Could it?

—

After an investigation, I’m finally able to return home. I was cleared since I had only lived in the house for eight months. Allana Rose Weston died at 28 years old due to blunt force trauma to the head. They still don’t know who killed her, but her skeleton showed signs of her being killed 30 years ago so it’s possible we’ll never know. The running theory is that she was killed by a lover or partner of some sort while sleeping. I don’t understand how the police are able to deduce that, but I can only hope that the nightly visitor who stole my sleep can rest easy now. I think that in all the time she kept me from dreamland, she wasn’t doing it out of malice, jealousy, or anger. I believe she was doing it from a place of protection. Her life was stolen in her sleep and perhaps she believed she was preventing history from repeating itself. My eye bags are fading, but I think a part of me will miss her. But now the world remembers her, and I always will too.