excerpt from “Wake Up”

Prickles in her arm alert the brain to stop the midnight screening. Thankfully, her hand had rested too long beneath her pillow and demanded the show come to an end. The lights fade up slowly in the theater of her mind as she fights between a stupor and presence. Clicking her eyelids together, she peels the top lid from the bottom, her arm still anchored to the bed, so deeply asleep that she uses the conscious one to lift it and shake. Four-forty-two in the morning. She read the time from the clock beside her bed, a choice she made after Sydney, from work, insisted that sleeping near a cellphone disrupts sleep through electromagnetic radiation. Of course, she believes the same. The red analog numbers read one hour earlier than the night before and two hours until she had to be up for the office. This might be the worst night of the week. Sydney tells her to write them down and of course, she does.

When reaching into her bedside table, her pointer finger crash lands into a sticky pool of old ketchup. Jordan likes to avoid cleaning up as much as possible, covering it with a bad “I’m saving it for later” joke. She hates eating in bed. She likes it cold at night. Her mother would crack the window open, gently calling in a night breeze to allow her head to rest. She hates the cold when Jordan steals the blanket and allows the fan to throw direct insults at the small nightgown she thought would work.

With a surrender of resentment, she allows the ending credits to properly display the image she unfortunately made for herself. Every night she is able to test the waters of Rob Zombie and fight for the shock factor of a poorly written horror film. What is the worst thing she could think of and let’s show it. She’s careful to observe Jordan for any signs he was invited to the screening. Had she jolted in her sleep? Had she spoiled the plot in an unconscious rendition of what she saw? Had she kicked or groaned? She hated her brain for what it wanted to picture. It was a scary reflection of the worst things she could imagine. She hated it most, because of the lack of sleep. Maybe if Sydney hadn’t kept her so late, she wouldn’t feel the need to perpetually compete in the relay race of sleep. Her eyes wouldn’t be draped with a heavy grey gown. Her board meeting interjections would land. The endless pile of tasks often were the commercial intermissions in her dreams. She would wake and roll over, allowing a brief recollection of the work still sitting on her desk before eventually, her eyes became heavy again as her mind directed its focus to the main production.