Awake to Sleep

She woke up at 7:45 that morning.

Waking up was usually a calming moment for her. She would open her eyes, steadily letting the dim light of the early morning flood in between her eyelids, not unlike the way the light pours in through the slats of vertical wooden shutters.
Then she would steadily become aware of where she was: on her couch; in a hotel some place far away; in the upstairs attic-style room of a farmhouse in Tennessee; in her mother’s recliner; on an airplane destined for either a hotel or the attic room. Or was she, more commonly, just sleeping on the couch, across from her Partner, who often fell asleep in the theatre-style seat recliner that was kitty-corner to her? And, even more commonly, she would find herself awake in bed, half of the blankets missing from on top of her because her Partner had decided to roll over at some point in the night, taking them with him.

This morning she woke up with most of the blankets kicked off of her at some point during the night, her mouth as dry as cotton, and words rasping out of it as she became aware less quickly than usual:
“No...no... D-don’t go! I can’t find my medicine. I can’t find you if you go! Wait! Stop!”

She writhed in what was left of the blankets and tried to sit up. She could not. She wriggled around until she could see where she was-- her Partner was asleep on the theatre seat recliner, the Young Dog was asleep on top of him, and the Old Dog was snoring on the floor in the crook of the couch, which was shaped like an “L”.

A low wail escaped Her lips. She knew where she was in the real world but the dream she had been in had felt so real.

The Young Dog, hearing Her moan, jumped off of her partner and climbed on top of her.
She moaned again, recalling the dream:

It had been something about a sinking ship. She had a lot of disaster oriented dreams, all of which ended in either her death or her loss of control over the situation-- This one had ended in her loss of control.

Her Partner was in the dream, although he was not nearly as handsome as he was in the Real World; she was sure of that even as she dreamt.
The boat they were on was presently sinking at a curiously slow rate, as though time had come to a crawl outside the boat while chaos was rife within. Passengers, many of them supposed colleagues and friends of hers, clamoured to get out of the sinking freighter, which was about the size of an aircraft carrier and held many thousands of people. The ones she cared most about were holed up in a bunk area that was reserved for the workers of the ship; specifically, the food preparation and service workers. During her service on the freighter, she had been a clerk at a fast-food restaurant and, barring the friends she had goaded on to join her in this “endeavour”, she had acquired many new friends who were quickly turning out to be the kind that only cared for fair weather. She had gotten her foot stuck beneath one of the bunks as the water was rising and, each time she called for help, they would yell as they ran, trudged, slogged, and finally swam through the brackish water that was filling up the room: “You’re strong; much stronger than me! You can get up! I need to save my stuff!”
It was true; she was strong, but she could not unravel the thick blankets that had wrapped themselves around her leg and her legs were the weakest part of her body, yet another parallel to her situation in Real Life.

Then her Partner came along.

His hair was thicker, his body more muscular, though he was still incredibly lean, and his striking hazel eyes met hers as she said: “Help me.”
Her voice was a soft plea.
He looked at her, his face full of guilt and shame as he replied, “I cannot.”
He was not handsome at all.

The water was up to her neck. It only reached his waist because of the tilt of the freighter as it sank. He slogged on through the cold brackish water, leaving her behind.

She screamed at him to come back. She cried that he was her only hope. Then she dove beneath the dark, deepening water and began to unwrap her legs from the noose that the blankets had created.           
It was nearly impossible but, as she came up for air, she found that a multi-tool had been lying on the previously top bunk, which was now next to her head. She grabbed it, took a final breath, and dove down.

She switched open the multi-tool and pulled out the serrated knife that was often used as a seat belt cutter by paramedics. She easily sawed through her heavy cloth shackles and, with her saviour secure in her mouth, she swam out of the room as everything was swallowed up by the wet deathly dark.

As she emerged from the doomed freighter, her partner was in sight, standing on a strangely convenient island that had a modest seaside mansion atop of it. She could barely make out his form but she knew it was him by the way he carried himself. An accomplished swimmer, she did the breast stroke until she reached the shallow water around the island’s beach. She walked unsteadily from there. Hundreds of others had followed her lead, though they were all carrying large amounts of personal effects; some of them not even water proof-- laptops, cell phones, portable pad-style computers. One couple was struggling to stay afloat while they dragged a fairly large flat-screened television between them. She yelled at everyone to leave their possessions behind: they could be replaced. Not a single one paid her any mind. Some began to sink, drowning with their treasures. She did not help them.

One passenger was struggling to stay afloat while the only possession he had with him was a white, waterlogged, and very angry cat. The left side of his face was covered in scratches and he was one-third of the way to reaching the island. She optioned to dive into the water and help him. She put the cat atop her head, which was covered with a baseball cap that she’d found on the beach. She then began to tread water as the cat’s owner pushed the two of them along to the safety of the island. Though he thanked her quickly, he was not short of gratitude-- it showed in his eyes. He removed a sweatshirt that he’d had tied about his waist (she wondered how he could have swam so well with such a bulky thing dragging along with him), wrapped up the still nettled little cat, and ran off to find his kin.

Her Partner was nowhere in sight.
She shuffled through the ranks of the refugees twice before she realised that he must have caught a boat to the mainland.
She hurried to the docks as quickly as her weakened legs would allow. Sure enough, he had boarded a small speed boat that was just about filled to capacity. She would not make it in time to join him. Again she cried out:
“Help me! Wait! Don’t go!”

She fell onto her stomach in the sand and tears rolled down her cheeks:
“No...no... D-don’t go! I can’t find my medicine. I can’t find you if you go! Wait! Stop!”

She woke up, tangled in her blankets, half of them gone, and still moaning. She re-oriented herself and stopped moaning when she realised that she was at home and quite safe, her Partner sleeping just a few feet away.

She picked up her mobile phone to check the time: It was 7:45 am. Damn... It would be three more hours before she was to go to lunch with a friend of the family and, since her Partner was very fast asleep, she did not want to wake him by getting up and doing busy work around the house.

She sighed. It was so inconvenient when he fell asleep on the couch-- it really limited the things that she could do. She did realise that she was terribly cold, though, and turned the thermostat up to seventy-something. When she stood up, the Young Dog that had laid on top of her dropped from onto the couch.

The Young Dog looked up at her with doe-like brown eyes as if to say “Are we done sleeping? Can I have a treat? I saved you from the bad noises! I can have a treat?”

She knew the look well. She motioned for the young dog to follow her into the foyer, through the dining room, through the kitchen, and into “The Hall of Doing Stuff”-- a mud room that led out into the upward-sloping backyard.
She opened the back door.

The Young Dog burst out from between her legs in a single flying leap, her legs moving so fast as she tore around the yard that they blurred together. The grass was icy so she did not stop running until she did her business and then started right up again as though she had never stopped. The Girl’s mother had said that the Young Dog looked like a prancing gazelle. She had to disagree: the little tan chihuahua-terrier mix definitely identified more with a Dik-Dik in both stature and top speed.

Cold air had been rushing in since she’d opened the door for the Young Dog but the excited little romper was not answering her summons. She yelled for her once more in a very stern, motherly tone, which got the dog’s attention and sent her hurtling down the Garden Slope, back between her legs, through the Hall and finally screeching to a stop in the kitchen where the little dog did a one-hundred and eighty degree airborne jump.
The doe-eyed look was back, clearly stating “Cookies now”.

“Yes yes-- Cookies now, Dog.” While the Young Dog had been tearing around the Garden Slope, She had slipped away and grabbed two little dog biscuits for her.

Seeing the cookies, the Young Dog instantaneously sat, her tail wagging behind her.

The Girl laid her hand out flat, parallel to the floor, and gave the Young Dog a look as if to say “you know what I want out of you, missy”.
The little dog dropped onto her stomach, eyes still matching the Girl’s: “Cookies. Now?”

She tentatively placed one cookie in the Young Dog’s mouth, who began to awkwardly chew. She placed the second in front of the dog’s paws and left her to decide its fate.


Her phone rang. Lovely.

She answered it; her mother’s chipper voice came piping out of the earpiece.
“Oh yeah. Good morning, mum,” She flopped back onto the couch as though her Partner was not even there. She jumped back up as soon as she’d sat down and found a quiet corner in The Hall of Doing Stuff instead.

“I’ll be ready to go whenever you all are.” Pause. “Uh huh.” Pause. “Yeah.” Pause. “Ten-thirty, then.” Another final pause as her mother wrapped up the details. “Yeah, alright, see you then. Love you bye.” She pressed the picture of the red telephone on her cell and ended the call. She wandered out of the Hall of Doing Stuff-- Named by a stoner friend of hers who had announced that one could do just about anything in that little mud room because it somehow managed to hold a sizeable pantry, refrigerator, trash and recycle bins, washer, dryer, dishwasher, and a curmudgeonly little hedgehog, by the name of Scout Finch, who would only come out to play when she damn well felt like it.

She got dressed slowly. She had an hour to spare before her family would be leaving for lunch. She pulled on a T-shirt over a bra that she had been wearing continuously for nearly two days. To compensate for any unpleasant smell, she rolled on some anti-perspirant and sprayed herself with a clean smelling Wal-Mart version of Playboy Brand body spray. She pulled on some skinny fit jeans which were starting to fall off of her hips. She had no complains with that and, instead of trying to fuss with a belt all day, she snapped a pair of black suspenders onto them and pulled them on over her shirt.

With fifty-five minutes still left, she grabbed a fat-free yogurt cup and took her handful of colourful medications for the morning. If she was going to be out, she did not want to be popping pills in public. It was not that she felt self conscious about it, it was just that she was afraid she may lose one in her haste to swallow them all and not get the full benefit of her prescriptions, all of which she, as she had said many times, needed “to live”.

She tossed her yogurt into the trash can in The Hall of Doing Stuff. She then moseyed through the kitchen, the dining room, and stopped at the front door in the foyer, dropping her forehead onto one of its cool glass panes. The mostly-glass antique door faced the street and she could see cars coming and going, families getting their children ready for school, dogs walking up and down the sidewalk. She could also see her mother outside in the yard of the sunny yellow house across the street-- her mother and father’s house.    

She had been told by some that depression hits like a ton of bricks. Still others said that it was like the last straw piled on to the back of a camel, breaking it and rendering it as good as dead. To her, depression did not approach her in either fashion; it came on like a heavy cloud of sleepiness. It made her body feel heavy, filled her mind with a thick, acrid London fog, and took every bit of care for anything at all out of her being.

She blankly stared out the window for what seemed like an eternity. She checked her watch: it might as well have been an eternity as it was time to go.

She zipped up her hoodie, grabbed a hat, popped on her shoes, and, not bothering to tie them, hurried down the twelve steps that it took to reach the sidewalk, looked three times before she ambled across the street, walked up the four stairs that lead to her parents home, and knocked on the front door.

She let herself in,

Moments later, she let herself out. Nobody was ready, their time of departure had changed from 10:30 to 11:00, and mother insisted that their friend was always early, though she was nowhere in sight.
She excused herself and opened the front door, descended the four steps, looked once before she crossed the street, and ambled unsteadily up the twelve stairs to her front door. She was greeted with a blast of warm air when she entered the house. She lowered the thermostat a little, noticed that her Partner had moved himself into the bedroom, and sat down on the couch.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t tell anyone why; they just did that on their own. She cradled her head in her hands for a few minutes before she picked up her cell phone and sent a text to her mother:

“Not feeling well. Bring back tortillas and beans for me plz?”

Her mother replied more quickly than usual:
“Hope u feel better. Ok.”

She laid down on the couch and thought about the dream she’d had. She thought about what it might have meant, though she did not believe in such things.
She thought about lighting a candle above the statue of her Goddess, a statue she had sculpted herself. She did not move.
She thought about death and how it offered the chance to take her away from all of this pain. She was afraid to die.
She thought about how she had no idea where the pain was coming from in the first place. The prospect of never getting better made the idea of death less terrifying.
She still did not move.

She wanted it all to end but the depression was winning to the point that all she could do was pull a blanket around her, grab a few Xanax from the backpack she always took with her when she went out, and go to sleep.

She laid her head down on the pillow, sinking into the soft couch cushions. She prayed not to dream.

She did not dream.