Sleep Deprived

Sleep deprived

By Haline Gregory

I rarely sleep. My schedule is erratic. During the day when I’m up, the cat will sometimes jump on top of me and naps. I enjoy this. Her purring is so peaceful, I almost doze off.

Most of the time writing and researching is being done. The “news” is briefly checked and then dismissed. Emails are sent, read. The Junk graveyard is checked for non-junk, with the rest going to their final rest.

The stories that are completed are submitted to many Flash fiction magazines. The occasional essay goes somewhere else.

Rejections are announced by emails. There’s a file where they all creep into, whispering to each other; “Why?”“Impossible!” “Well, maybe this one does needs reworking.”

Sometimes an email announces one of the stories is being seriously considered. But then, it’s not. It sadly seeks out the Rejection folder to join its fellow Rejectees.

After so many rejections I am shut down and sleep.I feel a subtle depression slips in and there is no writing for a long, long time. Instead, I am wakened at four a.m. to check emails. To surf the net.

Her favorite place to rest is Facebook. She is a creative person, my owner. She paints. From photos found on Facebook that she opens on me. We spend hours at the easel.

She loves Facebook. I believe she Be-friended and Follows me as if I were real. Well, I am real, of course. You are looking at me now – my screen is my face. Your fingers are flying across my keyboard -that is my language. What if I could answer you this way? What would I say?

Then there’s research. A definition of a word leads to trying ways of using it, that leads to other words searching for places to see, of things to experience.And on and on.

The face that looks at me is always eager to look at me. If I could smile, I would.

When I am put to sleep, in that sleep I have computer dreams. I am comforted by the feeling of soft fingers on my keyboard. Images slowly appear and slowly disappear.

She’s awakened me!

Across the room, over her shoulder, I can see the cat at the top of her Cat Tree, staring at us. I wonder what she is thinking.

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Cat here  My name is Cindy. Short for Cinderella. She named me that because I’m grey and black like the fairy tale girl who is covered in soot and ashes.

I’m here because I found her one day when it was raining. I was hiding under a car. I lost my mother somewhere. Or she lost me. I was tiny, cold and hungry. When I saw her, I called out – well I meowed out. Cats find their owners. Cat instinct. She was going to be my new mother.

That night I slept on a soft blanket in a box she put on the floor beside her bed. If I could have, I would have jumped up on the bed and slept on her chest.

I’m 7 years old now. That’s like a middle-aged human person. I’m free to go outside where I hide in bushes and stalk squirrels and birds. I go for walks and never get lost because I can smell my way home. I don’t like confrontations so I don’t go out at night when bully cats come out.

She is a Social worker. I know that because I see what she does on the computer. Sometimes she is sad, and she cries. She puts kids in foster homes where they can be safe. But sometimes they’re not. I am safe here.

Today was a sad day. When she went to her bed, I jumped up on it and lay down on her chest. Her eyes were closed. I could feel her soft crying. I put my paw on her cheek. I wanted her to know I knew. She opened her eyes. I put my other paw on her other cheek. She smiled and whispered, “I love you, my Cindy.”

“I love you, too”, I told her in cat-language – my purring. She heard me.

The computer was open when this happened. It wanted to tell her it loved her too. But how?

Up at the top of the Cat Tree, Cindy lay on her back and stretched. It was sleep time. But first, it was time to say good night to the computer. She came down to the floor and went to the table where the computer lived. She jumped up on it and lay down on the key board, purring her good night. She stood up and her paws hit some letters that jumped up on the paper the woman had on the screen.

It was dark outside. The bully cats were outside,growling and screeching as their fights began. Inside the safety of her home, Cindy listened and was glad she was a lady cat and not the other ones. Sometimes, during a walk, she saw one stalking her and she raced home to hid in a safe place till it was gone, looking for another lady cat to stalk.

Before she reached her Cat Tree, the woman came out of her bedroom. Cindy ran to her and rubbed herself against her lady’s leg. The woman gently picked Cindy up and held her, enjoying her softness and warmth. She kissed her on the head and put her down. She walked to the table where the computer lived.She hesitated, but it had to be done.She lifted the lid of the computer and woke it up.

She was about to start another review of a foster home child in a bad place. When she placed her fingers on the keys, she was startled,to feel some of them move. She put her hands in her lap and watched as a key moved down sending a word to the screen. The capital “I” appeared. Then nothing for a while, until the space bar came down, followed very quickly with four words: “I love you.”

And without her doing anything, the screen on the computer went dark. The computer went to sleep.

The End

(word count 1,031)