The Book and The Lamp

Neil envied people who say they love sleep. Those who say they see it as a refuge where they can rest and renew safely. For Neil, sleep was never safe. It had always been a noisy, chaotic place. When he was younger, he was plagued with nightmares. For a while, thanks to lousy sleeping patterns that involved staying awake as long as he possibly could and waking up earlier than he should. The dreams he remembered were scarce these days. Until the book and the lamp started haunting him.

The first night, he was caught off guard by his fatigue and tried to train his eyes steadily on the trashy TV show he was watching.

In what felt like a split second, he tipped his head back on the sofa and woke up sweating and panting in complete darkness. His eyes strained as he tried to focus on anything.

There were vague, dull outlines of furniture around the room. Then he felt a piercing pain through his eyes as they focused on a small light flickering in the distance. Sliding off the bed onto his weak, tired, unsteady feet, the cold hardwood floor did not feel as firm and solid as it should be.

Stumbling in the dark, bumping into several sharp corners along the way, he walked towards the light, down an old hallway with a bitter, stale smell that wafted through on the breeze -- a window was open somewhere, he thought. The light came from a small lamp on a table in another unfamiliar room. Underneath the lamp was a notebook and pen. Feeling a strong compulsion to sit, he entered the room fully as the door slammed shut behind him.

He woke up panting and sweating in his bedroom in the light of the day.

*

Although struck by the dream, he didn't think much more of it. Perhaps it had something to do with the piece he had to write for work as he struggled to put words on the screen. He had all but forgotten it by the following night. It was just another dream, another immersive art his brain concocted. Lamp seemed like an obvious spotlight on the book-written word. Not exactly subtle, was it?

*

He managed a more gallant effort to stay awake this time, but his eyes grew heavier, and he felt his head tip back again before quickly lifting it to find himself back in the same bedroom again. His eyes strained as he tried to focus on anything.

Ignoring the dull outlines of furniture, as the bitter, stale smell wafted through the breeze, he slid from the bed and stumbled in the dark towards the light. The light coming from the small lamp on the table in another unfamiliar room.

Underneath the lamp was a notebook and pen. Neil felt that same strong compulsion to sit as another piercing pain burned behind his eyes. He entered the room fully as the door slammed shut behind him. Gasping, he tried the handle, but it wouldn't budge.

With no alternative, he went to the desk and sat in the chair, inspecting the notebook as sweat dripped from his forehead. The notebook was old, tarnished, and frayed around the seams of its hardcover, though its pages were blank. As his hands fingered through the empty pages, searching for any clues, he felt another strong compulsion to write. Gripping the pen, he scribbled on page after page as his breathing and heart rate steadily and swiftly increased alarmingly.

Looking back through the many pages he had written on, he saw nothing...the pages were unchanged until he reached the beginning. As he closed the book, blood started dripping from the pages. Opening it, the blood pumped and sprayed continually as he struggled to breathe until he woke panting in his bedroom. His t-shirt was drenched in sweat as he tried to calm himself.

*

The next day drifted by as he tried to fight against the dying of the light with all his might. He scored several coffees, some speed from his neighbour and Red Bull for wings... He even tried going to the park, but his body ached, and he had flashbacks to the book and the blood. He had called in sick, much to the annoyance of his boss. He sat alone on the sofa and tried to stay awake. He was still convinced it had something to do with his work deadline. Yvonne, his boss, had sent him a message to remind him.

*

As much as he tried to fight against it, sleep won the battle, and he found himself again in the same bedroom.

Navigating more easily, this time through the hallway's dark to the room. As the door shut, Neil sat. He was afraid, but a greater power drove him forward, forced him to sit down at the chair, and once again, he scribbled like a man possessed into the blank notebook. This time, though, Neil steadied himself, determined to find out...anything. He held the book open, felt the urge to repeat the pattern of previous nights, but maintained control before a shot of pain ran down both his arms, and the book slammed shut on his hands. The now familiar blood drops poured down from inside the book, covered his hands as he tried to prise it open. As he struggled, panted and worried his heart might give out, the book sprung open, and he was pushed backwards on the chair in slow motion before it hit the floor with a bang.

*

Neil sat up quickly, sweating and full of tears. As he panted hysterically, his wife stroked his arm and asked what was wrong. He couldn't even speak as he turned to face her, trying to breathe deeply and calm down. As his eyes adjusted and he focused on the sharper, more beautiful form of his wife's face, he noticed a quizzical look spreading across her face. "Forgive me for what?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" he replied. "Look in the mirror...Neil...what have you done?" she raised her voice in a mixture of confusion and quiet rage.

Sliding out of bed, he walked towards the same room and, on the desk, laid the book with blood seeping out of it over the table and onto the floorboards. It was just a dream, he muttered repeatedly as he walked forward and opened the book to find the words "forgive me" scribbled on every page.

His arms started to itch, and as he scratched them, he looked down and saw blood and the exact words etched into his skin: "Forgive me". This can't be real; he tried to convince himself, rubbed his eyes to try and wake up, but smeared more blood on his face. In the desk drawer, he found a mirror and held it up to see the exact words etched into his forehead.

Dropping the mirror, he stumbled back into the bedroom to face Gill, still sitting in bed, crying and staring at him. "What. Did. You. Do?"

Neil slumped his shoulders as his head dropped.

It was just a silly fling...he did not intend for things to go as far as they did. Not that that was any reasonable reason why he decided to pursue a relationship with Yvonne. Sure, he and Gill had drifted over time, but it was no excuse. He had longed to tell her...but the coward that he was had prevented him from doing so. He knew divorce was on the horizon and felt as if he could hold the storm off before ending things with Yvonne, his boss. The long hours and the fact they had drifted strengthened his relationship with Yvonne as his marriage became increasingly strained.

Gill seemed disinterested and distant, but did Neil misread and misunderstand things? After all, his sleep patterns had left him unable to differentiate between the waking and sleeping worlds. Perhaps the problem was not Gill.

She had remained faithful to him and supported him through his various manic moments when sleep deprivation affected everything. Gill had never blamed him for his sleep issues but had encouraged him to seek out help. Help that he had dismissed as pointless.

That, in part, was what led him to seek out more hours at work, which meant more time spent with Yvonne, who played her part of the caring and understanding colleague to a tee. If he stopped to think about it, would Neil leave Gill, the woman who had shown him what real love could be like, for Yvonne, who was manipulative and happy to sleep with a married man? Although he never felt he could lose his job, there was no easy way out once he was in deep with the boss.

As he sat on the bed and tried to explain to Gill what had happened, tears streaming down their faces, his wounds pumped blood, and he felt light-headed, losing control of his body.

*

No, he thought as he came to and sat up. Panting, covered in sweat, he looked across at his wife, who was still asleep. How could he have been so stupid...so arrogant and selfish. He felt disgusted that he didn't even use protection. It was time to fess up, face the music and what would happen. Gill would be devastated, and he would be too - he was. But there was no way he could move forward without a confession.

*

He sat in his now very empty apartment on the same sofa and felt a strange relief from the sadness. Gill had taken as much of her stuff as she could fit in the car and drove to her friend's to stay. The future was uncertain - though he doubted there was a way back from the betrayal and deception. Perhaps now, when he needed to shut off from the miserable pit he found himself in, he could sleep. Surely without fear, he could catch up on sleep, get the needed therapy, and consider a career change. Whatever it took, he would try to win back Gill. Even if it didn't work. It would still be worth it.

Distraught and upset but calmer than he had been in a long time, he closed his eyes and tipped his head back; he was thrust back into the chair in the room with the lamp and the book. The book lay open with "Yvonne's pregnant" scrawled in deep crimson.

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: This is for the 3:00 AM Challenge. All comments are, as always appreciated.

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