Insomnia

It was just one of those nights. You know the kind. The nights when nothing felt right. We’d gone to bed almost two hours ago and I still couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t even close. Just one of those nights where your head keeps racing and every piece of fabric on the bed was beginning to irritate. I usually needed music to mellow it out, just as I needed it to drown out the deafening noise of nothing.

I hated a quiet house, and I hated lying in the dark. I always felt like it was watching me, like every time I turned my back there was something standing right there. At night, when the world went to sleep and the critters hiding in the walls, the bugs and the rats got their chance to stretch their legs, I thought I could feel them watching from the hidden spots inside my own house. The spiders on the wall with their many eyes staring at us in bed.

I’d lost my headphones that afternoon and my airpods were broken, that left the radio, but Jason didn’t like hearing the radio when he was falling asleep so, I had to hear the silence, and it really wasn’t working for me. I turned the lamp on when I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew the light wouldn’t disturb Jason. Once asleep, nothing could wake him up. That man could sleep through a hurricane. I picked up the book I’d left on my bedside cabinet and opened to where I’d left off less than three hours ago. Maybe I could read my brain into exhaustion.

I was still trying to do just that, forcing myself to feel exhausted, when I heard Jason giggle beside me. I looked over at him, but he was still asleep. His eyes were shut but there was a big grin on his face as his fingers clutched tightly around the comforter pulled up to his neck.

“Jason?”

He giggled again. The movement shook me a little, making me reposition my hold on the book. I looked at his face, and he was definitely asleep. It wasn’t the first time Jason talked in his sleep, mostly it was just mumbles, but he never giggled before. He barely laughs when he’s awake.

I went back trying to fall into the story, and then he giggled again. Louder this time. He was giggling like a schoolboy doing something naughty. I put the book down and looked over at him.

“Hey babe?”

The reaction was instant and a bit unsettling. Jason’s face froze, his head turned toward me so fast it caught me off guard. His eyes were still shut, but after a moment the smile came back, and he giggled again.

“Can you hear me in there?”

He nodded, “yes,” he said, still smiling, “we can all hear you.”

I ignored the “we.” People can’t control what they see in dreams, right? He giggled again.

“What are you laughing at?” I asked.

Jason pointed straight up and said, “the man on the ceiling.”

My eyes followed to where he pointed, to a spot directly over the bed. Nothing was there. Of course nothing was there. Why did I even bother to look?

“He’s behind you now.”

I looked back at Jason and saw the hand had lowered to point at a spot directly behind my head. Jason was still smiling; it was almost sweet looking.

“He’s waiting for you to turn off the light.

Rachel Roth