Interlude

Sleep…

The terrible thing about darkness is that it doesn’t stay dark. Your eyes adjust. Unless you’re in a perfect vacuum, light always finds a way in. Like ants in a pantry, or squirrels in a bird feeder. They cannot be kept out.

In the dark, your pupils dilate—but the real magic happens in the retina: Your photoreceptor cells (cones and rods). Cones handle color, vision, and detail. However, because they’re not very sensitive to low light, the rods do most of the heavy lifting by producing more rhodopsin. The blackness fades to shades of gray, your world dissolving into shifting, shivering outlines.

The light creeps in.

No matter how hard I close my eyes, the light creeps in. The blinds are drawn and the curtains shut. My blanket hangs from the curtain rod, my bedsheet stuffed into cracks between wall and drapes. Still. The light creeps in.

SHUT UPSHUTUPSHUTUPgo away

I can’t see the spiderweb cracks in the ceiling, where water drips from when it rains, staining the plaster a dehydrated piss yellow. I can’t make out the pinprick holes in my walls where posters once hung. But I can see the shadow of my desk in the far corner, and the dresser, and the bedside table, and the clothes scattered over the floor. And that’s enough. It’s more than enough.

And even if you were in a vacuum of black, if you couldn’t see anything at all, your body would still fuck you over by supplementing your other senses. You would be able to smell better. Hear better. Cars passing by outside, distant voices. Upstairs’ television, jumbled score and dialogue that mixes into a nauseating drone. Air conditioning. The world exists in spite.

SLEEP!!!

I fade in and out, with no idea how much time has passed between bouts of consciousness. Hours, days, weeks. Perhaps seconds. Dreams are confusing and provide no respite. I can hear talking in the hallway, and I recognize who is speaking, but I can’t decipher if they want to help me or kill me, until I find myself in an unfamiliar position, drool on my chin and pillow, and the voice has gone—if it was ever there at all.

When I was ten, my parents took me and my brother Brian on a trip to New York City. We stayed at Uncle Matt’s apartment, and I remember complaining that it smelled like skunk. I remember my mom telling me not to use the Dove Bar Soap Matt kept in the shower, and I remember not understanding why and using it anyway. I remember standing at the window and looking over the grey city, with its grey storm clouds, and its ashy grey sidewalks, and its leafless grey trees.

We went to the central park zoo. Brian liked the seals; he liked to watch them swim circles around their enclosure while a crowd ooo’d and aww’d, and handlers tossed fish. Mom bought Brian a small, red wax model seal balancing a ball on its nose, and I was very jealous. So jealous that I started squealing, until dad gave me a good shake and we moved on.

There was a polar bear. His name was Gus. Gus was kept inside, behind a wall of glass that let visitors peer into the water and watch him swim. There was no crowd for Gus. I sat on the cold, dark stone floor, looking at his massive form as it floated back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. His enormous paws pushed off against the opposite rock wall, sending him slowly drifting, then,

Thunk.

He hit his head softly against the glass, right where I pressed my palm, imagining I could feel him. He didn’t balance his ball on his nose. He didn’t eat fish. He was the only polar bear. His fur was white, white, white, whiter than snow, except for the crown of his head, where he bumped against the glass. Where the fur was worn down, showing pink skin.

Thunk.

I could have watched him for hours.

After a few minutes, Mom put a yellow wax polar bear in my hands and pulled me away. I don’t know what happened to my wax Gus. It never made it home. I suppose I left it somewhere in Matt’s apartment. Brian kept his seal, displaying it proudly in our shared bedroom. Balancing its ball.

The real Gus was euthanized less than a year later.

Wind and rain outside my window.

The greatest place in the world to be is in bed, and the greatest thing to be is asleep. To die, to sleep—to sleep, perchance to dream. But still.

The light creeps in.

Thunk.