Sleeping Selfie

I needed to take a picture of myself for a job application.

I hate taking selfies - I don't have facial dysmorphia but I certainly don't like my face.

My mouth and chin are slightly lop-sided, and - although not evident when I look in the mirror - that slant is always clearly obvious in any photograph of me.

And, whilst I do have a far better sleeping pattern than I did prior to my break-down a year ago, I don't get my full eight-hours every night. When I don't, I look hagged, and ancient; far older than my 46 years.

Forget worrying about looking in my mid-forties; if I don't sleep, I look like a corpse. I've seen more virile, photogenic zombies.

As luck would have it, I did get a full-night's sleep prior to the morning I needed to submit this photograph. Blessedly, that faint hum of anxiety that can often accompany the hours of darkness had been absent.

And I'd slept, solidly, throughout the night.

My hopes were high; maybe I could get a decent image.

After ten minutes of taking various pictures of myself against a variety of backdrops (i.e. walls in my apartment), I at last had a picture that was usable. I'd also got lucky with the light; a rare burst of autumnal sunshine meant that no digital sleight-of-hand was needed. The photograph was well-lit, and I didn't look like one of the undead - I was satisfied.

Which, when comes to a picture of me, is pretty amazing.

All I needed to do was delete the images I wasn't going to use. I'd recently downloaded a number of apps, and my aged phone was beginning to slow down when to came to processing tasks. Over the last few days, I'd got into the habit of deleting, and off-loading, trying to keep my iPhone operational.

I sat on my bed, and began depositing the unwanted photographs into the digital trash basket.

Flick - flick - flick...

I'd reached the start of the sequence, and deleted the very first picture I'd taken in that morning's photo-shoot. I wasn't sure what photograph would emerge next - probably one showing my daughters and I.

I wasn't expecting...

A picture of me.

Asleep.

I froze.

I flicked further back. Unsurprisingly, there followed a series of pictures of my youngest daughter and I, smiling. I flicked forwards, back towards...

One photograph.

Black and white.

Me. Asleep.

I checked the time and date it was taken. Tuesday morning. 2.37 am.

Three nights ago.

I forced my brain to think; had someone stayed over on Tuesday night? If so, had they taken a photograph...?

Instantly, that made no sense.

To access the camera, the guest would need my pass-code. A four-digit sequence I'd never told anyone else.

However, that was trivial compared to the real issue:

I'd been alone in my apartment that night.

No-one had been with me.

I had been on my own...

No - that couldn't be right. Someone else must have been in the flat with me. They must have. And, somehow, they'd bypassed my security code, and taken a picture of me. Perhaps it was some strange joke.

But who?

The list of people who might, under any eventuality, stay over was a small one. However, maybe one of them had. Maybe I had forgotten. At the very least, I should certainly check.

Four text messages later, and my initial thoughts were proven correct. None of the people who were on my short-list had stayed with me. Two of them weren't even in the country.

I had been on my own.

Then I must have taken the picture. I must have.

Perhaps my memory was faulty; maybe I hadn't slept solidly through the night. At some point, I'd woken, and - half-asleep - taken a photograph of myself. Maybe the picture captured that moment just before I'd drifted off into unconsciousness again?

It was nothing; just a random, nonsensical action of someone briefly trapped in between two of the various states of sleep.

But...

I knew I hadn't. As much as I wanted to believe that, I also knew that none of that had happened. In fact, it was physically impossible.

My iPhone hadn't even been in the bedroom with me.

Since my break-down, sleep has become one of the foundation stones of my recovery. I don't always succeed in getting a full-night's sleep, but I get a lot more than I used to. One of the reasons for that is because of the changes I've made to my bedtime routine.

I don't just avoid screen-time an hour before retiring, I don't even have my phone in the same room.

I leave it in the living-room.

And, so far, I've never once woken up to find it in the bedroom.

Just as I hadn't on this occasion.

I would have remembered waking up to find it next to me. And I didn't. I hadn't.

Okay... okay...

Maybe I hadn't woken up at all. Perhaps I'd done it all whilst still asleep...

Instantly, the sheer logistics of it bamboozled me: I had sleepwalked to the living-room, picked up my phone, returned to my bedroom, laid down, taken a selfie, and... what? At some point, I'd got back up, and put my iPhone back in the living room?

But then there was the picture itself: I was asleep in the photo - how could I have managed to get a clear shot of myself with my eyes closed? Forget sleep-walking; this was sleep-digital-photography.

None of this made sense.

I sat there, on the edge of my bed, looking at photograph of me asleep trying to figure out how this had happened.

Trying to figure out how it had been taken and by whom.

Me. Asleep.

As I sat there, a memory, hazily, lazily, surfaced in the nether regions of my sub-conscious. A memory I hadn't recalled for over a decade now. Slowly, that memory grew larger, dominating my internal landscape until it was all I could see.

Normally, I am clean-shaven. However, over the past year I have dabbled with a quarantine-beard.

And, with it, I can see my father in me.

I looked like him.

Dad.

As I stared at the image on my phone, I remembered leaning over to kiss him for the last time, as he lay in his bed at the hospice. By this point, I'm not even sure he was aware of me; death held one of his hands firmly, and was gently ushering him to a place where he would, finally, be free of pain.

My 'goodbye' completed, I remember standing to leave the room. Before I did, I turned. I saw his face. Slowly, it was transforming into a death-mask. At rest.

Like mine in the photograph.

Me. My father.

At peace.

I sat there for the rest of the morning, looking at the picture of me. Seeing my father. I remained immobile. Lost upon an ocean of recollections.

Thoughts that, for a variety of reasons, I'd kept submerged as I'd attempted to re-build my shattered life.

My father. And me.

At some point in the early afternoon, I'd finally stood. As I did, I felt lighter. I left the bedroom, and resumed my daily battle against the life I'd found myself in. I've no idea why, but I felt energized. Ready for the fight.

The mystery photograph still remains a mystery. I do not know how it appeared on my phone. However, as the days have gone on, I've grown more sanguine about it. My memory was blunted by my break-down; there are gaps, and my recall is not as strong as it was. In all honesty, the likelihood is that I did take it, and simply forgot.

A harmless, meaningless action performed by someone who was temporarily caught in that strange, soundless land between sleep and waking.

The chances of it being supernatural are infinitesimal to zero. I know that. Yet...

I've not fully let go of the prospect that it was - in some way - my father. If so, I've no idea what message he was trying to convey.

But, every morning, after waking, the first thing I do is check my phone.

Maybe, one day, something else will appear.

And part of me hopes it does.

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