Sleeping With Myself

Sleeping With Myself

I’m still told the same bedtime stories I used to hear as a five-year-old - it’s the same voice too. I’m nineteen now. The stories told to me never helped me sleep, rather they kept me up all night. These tales lacked demons, princesses, heroes, or villains. Well, perhaps there was a hero and a villain but if I were to say that I would also have to admit that they were one and the same and I’m not ready to do that.

It was never any fun to relive my childhood each night, or even yesterday’s events. There was the time when Dalia looked at me with that sparkle in her eyes - was that a good sparkle or a bad one? She did smile at me after all. . . so it was probably good? And then, after I said goodbye in a quiet, shy voice, the sparkles would fade --- is that because she’s sad that I’m leaving? Or maybe I was smiling weirdly when I said it? I shook my head and turned over, facing left in hopes that the voice would only be speaking to my left ear.

I’m back in Mr. Turner’s office from a week ago. “Christian, you’ve seemed distant in class. Is something going on with the class? Or outside of it for that matter?” His smile was smug, and ill-placed it seemed.

I responded, my eyes looking out the window as I responded. “I’m fine. Thanks for your concern, though.” I could feel him staring at me while his smile straightened itself out. He sighed.

“You can come to me anytime you know.” He lowered his head to try to catch my eyes as they drifted toward his desk.

I knew he didn’t want to help. I could figure it out. “Yeah, thanks, Mr. Roberts. I will if I need to.” He nodded and stood up.

“Okay, Christian. Think about coming to the study hall one of my TAs leads. Fridays at 3. I know you don’t have class. I looked.” I walked out the door after he said that. I nodded, to be polite but looking back, his smile was smugger than I thought, and the way he said every word was terribly condescending.

I forgot I was in bed and how hot I was. I slipped most of my clothes off and threw the blankets onto the ground and then switched to my back which felt like a surrender. Maybe my stomach would be better. I feel hidden that way. No, I’ll stick with my back.

Melanie, my sister, was talking to her friends in the hall the other day. I passed them by myself. She looked at me for a second but then she remembered we were related before quickly looking away. As I passed them, I listened to their conversation like my life depended on it. “There’s your. . .” I think it was her next. “. . .swear. . we. . .are . . . related” They all laughed. I thought about turning around but it was easier to pretend like nothing happened, to say hi when we got home and then go to our rooms in a desperate attempt not to make eye contact. I heard her as I sat in bed; she was talking to a boy. She kept giggling. Surprisingly, he hadn’t snuck into her room tonight. Our parents must have caught on.

A moth was flying around outside my window. It seemed confused - there was no light drawing it in besides the moon’s. The moth kept flying into my window. It eventually landed against my window, staying completely still. The moth had been visiting me for a few nights now. The moon was full and it seemed the moth had been born from within its soft glow. I thought about when my dad had told me that moths only live for a few months and what kind of stories they heard each night. I assumed the only stories they know are the ones playing out before them in every moment.

I was swimming at the local pond. It was summer and a sweltering heat had settled onto the town that day. I usually swim with my shirt on but it was too hot that day. I had slipped it off just before getting in. Right before I jumped in, I heard some giggling behind me. It was the same giggling as my sister’s friends had done but the faces were new. I had come to know that particular laughter like it was the breeze. In the same way the wind would, it brushed against my skin only the laughter was rough like sandpaper.

Again, I listened for any words to mull about later. I couldn’t hear them so I jumped in. I shattered the surface and entered the water. It was dark under there so I closed my eyes while the voices whispered around me. I didn’t think they would follow me like they had. For a moment, it was all quiet and I wanted to stay under there forever.

I felt the same peace as I had underwater every night in bed until my heroic villain started telling me stories. Surely, the moth had no such enigmatic voice splitting its soul in two. I stood up and walked over to the window holding the moth. I touched the other side of the glass and to my surprise the curious, glowing creature didn’t flinch. In fact, it started flying in place in front of my finger. Down the hill my house was on, I thought I saw a sheep scampering through the trees at the edge of the forest.

I suddenly felt the lifespan of the moment as it aged. The moth began moving in circles as though it wanted me to follow it somewhere but I couldn’t do that. The moth realized this when I continued staring. I turned around and slipped back into my bed.

My dad yelled at me for not mowing the lawn. There was no way to explain the invisible weights tied to my mind that kept me inside most days so I didn’t bother. “You need to get off your ass and do something!” he had yelled it without mercy but I didn’t hate him for it. When people yell at me, I’ve begun to just smile and nod because I know they don’t understand me. I can’t blame him for that. Maybe I would yell too. People get scared or angry when they don’t understand something.

I yell at myself but no one else can hear it. I think the stories I hear each night are the result of a yell, like a coastal wave it begins large and powerful but as it reaches the shallows it calms just like my storyteller. Sometimes, I’ve noticed other people narrating my stories. Like the other day, when I played dodgeball in gym class. When I went to sleep that night, I heard the gym teacher as I watched myself play. He said, “Look at that terrible form. This kid wasn’t made for gym class.” The next time I went to gym class, I heard him say those words in his head when we looked at each other. Other times, the narrator would be the girl I like, Dalia, or my Dad or my sister.

I tried to count sheep a few months ago but I could only count the sheep in the middle of a story. I tried to create sheep when my gym teacher was judging me but they only ran through the gym and made things worse.

The moth is gone now and clouds shield my window from the moon’s light. Here I am again, telling myself stories of how I can’t get to sleep while the sheep listens at my window.