The unrelenting Wendig from his terribleminds.com blog has once again prodded the fading embers of my sick little campfire of a mind and brought back enough fire to roast one thousand marshmallow words out of my plastic bag of imagination that I bought at the Seven Eleven during a Tequila binge?
Well, here it is, burnt and smoking, but I like 'em that way:
INSOMNIAC
Cal’s doctor told him it was insomnia. Sleep state
misperception. Pretty fucking vague term, thought Cal. Pretty fucking vague
term that meant never really sleeping and never really being awake. He barely
felt alive anymore. More like Purgatory, he thought.
Do this, try
that. No caffeine. No TV an hour before bedtime. No computer. No internet.
Drink milk. Don’t drink milk. Try melatonin. Melatonin doesn’t work. Really? he thought as he watched blue
light spill across his bedroom ceiling from the headlights of passing cars.
Were they insomniacs as well? Not the cars, but the people in them; or maybe
both. The slave cars kept awake by their unrelenting masters.
Sometimes the
cold helped, so he had upped the air-conditioning. At first, the cold had
helped occupy his thoughts. It was sixty three degrees in his apartment, though
all he knew was that it was cold, but not cold enough. Or, maybe it needed to
be warmer?
When Cal was a
child, he slept. He could sleep anywhere. School, church, the backseat of his
dad’s Chrysler, the crook in the tree that was in his backyard. Everything was
crisp and clean back then. At age eight he realized there wasn’t really a
boogie man in the closet. The world made perfect sense. Life was fair. Life was
good to that naive kid. Then the world flooded in. The bad world, with bad air,
bad water, bad food… evil people.
People that meant him harm. People who didn’t even know Cal. People who didn’t
even know they were evil. They made him itch, made him uncomfortable. He worked
with these people. He was related to them. Cal couldn’t get rid of them. Their
conspiracies against him spun webs through his mind, webs tickling, congesting
then consuming his thoughts. Fat, bulbous black spiders sucking sleep from his
brain cells, leaving dry husks cocooned in tumorous clusters. God, let him
sleep!
He had tried
reading; the doctor had said to. At first it seemed to help. He’d gotten
through the first hundred pages of Moby Dick before his eyelids grew heavy, the
book slipping from his hands. Yet as soon as he’d put the book down and curl up
under the covers, the thoughts surfaced like black muck from the bottom of a
clear lake, dirty and vile. Or like a hundred shrill spoiled children screaming
for attention.
Tonight was no
different. However, Cal had come to a realization. Or maybe out of shear
desperation, his mind formed a rationalization. The voices weren’t going away.
Oh, no; they were here to stay. It had been at least three years now. He knew
it was time. Time to start listening. And Cal listened. He listened closely. He
found things out. Powerful things. Dangerous things. Horrible things. Things
that were inevitable.
It was five in
the morning by the time he fell into a fitful sleep. Dreams swirled behind
rolling eyes; pillars of fire seared his skin, dust and smoke choked his lungs,
a crushing blow shattered his bones. Cal awoke, struggling free from the sweat
soaked sheet that had bound him. Panting, he sat on the edge of his bed. Shaking,
he tried to gain composure, reaching for the TV remote on his night stand,
switching to the morning news report on CNN hoping the reality of the outside
world would wash the thoughts and nightmares from his psyche.
Cal didn't see
what he had expected to see. There were no talking heads with perfect hair and
knowing expressions sitting behind laminated plywood desks, green-screen images
flowing in an LCD river behind them. All Cal saw was a lone reporter, who looked
like he’d just rolled out of bed, hair askew, unshaven and bleary eyed, dressed
in a polo shirt with the collar flipped on one side, shirt hurriedly tucked
into wrinkled khaki pants. Cal would bet there was no camera man, just a camera
on a tripod running a live feed. What was going on?
“…US government
has not officially responded to the current situation. As of this time, it is
assumed that China has made first strike on New York City. An estimated six
million dead, a million plus seriously wounded and near death. I’m… Dale Henry,
lone reporter, ten miles outside city limits…” he broke down crying, “if you’re
seeing this, within a matter of minutes, fallout from the nuclear… strike will
be upon you… for the love of God…”
The feed went dead. Cal changed stations. Many were not
broadcasting. FOX network was broadcasting out of California. He watched for an
hour, even though “lone reporter” Dale Henry had pretty much said all that was
known at the time, although they were covering reports of nationwide looting
and vandalism. Military experts debated when to expect further strikes, and
where. Cal watched in numb silence. He didn’t even think to call anyone. What
would he have said?
Sirens wailed
outside, near and distant. A few rescue and police vehicles screaming just
blocks from his street. Cal felt tired. He lay back on his bed, eye lids heavy.
Even the wet sheet didn’t bother him. He became aware that the voices weren’t
there. Cal tried to remember what ol’ Dale had said: fallout in a matter of
minutes? Cal fell into a dead sleep.
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