April 2022 | Sleep

          I remember last summer when the staff was run ragged. It was August, late in the season, and every corner was crawling with family campers. Only Wayside remained untouched, being the only cabin too dingy and dated to rent out to guests. It was the staff's only sanctioned refuge.

         So you had twenty-five teenagers hemmed into Wayside, waiting for the end of the Friday night banquet so they could clean up the dining hall for breakfast. They sprawled out on stained floral couches and brown metal folding chairs. A lone fan stirred the boiling air.

         "It's way past nine. The banquet's never going to end."

         "At this rate, we'll be cleaning at midnight."

         "Every week they trash the place."

         And so on. The usual complaining, until someone said: “Forget the banquet. I’m going to bed.” This sparked some debate. Everyone had varying guesses as to what the consequences would be, but the room was buzzing and mutiny was looking good.

         That was when Scott walked in, fresh from the cabin’s only shower. A white towel was wrapped around his waist. He scrubbed his hair with a second towel before throwing it over his shoulder. It looked like he was sporting a toga.

         “Bad plan,” he said. Everyone quieted down. Scott was a volunteer that week. His unfamiliarity among the staff lent him a fleeting authority. He was also toned and the toga getup was kinda hot; the rest of us looked like scrawny nerds by comparison.

         “Why’s that?” said one of the louder mouths.

         “Because those family campers toil all year to scrape together one week of vacation. One week to forget about the checkbooks and chores.”

         “One week with us for slaves?” someone sneered. Scott grinned.

         “You’re getting paid.”

         “Paid dirt,” said another. “I’ve already put in ten hours today, why should I do twelve?”

         “Because this isn’t an Amazon warehouse.” Scott shook his head, and climbed the stairs to the loft. He placed both hands on the railing and loomed over them with Shakespearan flair. “This is the book of Revelation. You’re living in the end times.”

         Blank stares. Scott looked to the heavens and began his soliloquy. “The tradition of family camp goes way back to the fifties. It had its boom, and then its bust. And the bust was decades ago. This week might seem busy to you, but the camping season became shorter. It’s condensed. The cash isn’t flowing, which is why cabins like this one are falling apart.” He made a sweeping gesture about the room, and then shrugged. “Bad shower pressure, too.”

         “What are you talking about?” a staffer shouted from below. Scott slammed a fist down on the railing.

         “I’m talking about progress. Someday this place will be bought and Starbucked. I left my cushy office job to come back here for a week and sweat in the kitchen from dawn to dusk. You know why? Because as long as you get the work done, there are no rules here. No boss breathing down your neck for the next report. No punching the clock. Progress is coming for all of you. Enjoy the wild west while you can.”

         The staffers thought for a moment. “We’re too tired to enjoy it.”

         “Have it your way. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

         And so the revolution happened, and it was dumb. From his perch on the railing, Scott watched them trickle out of Wayside. Sleepy babies off to bed, ready to leave all the banquet dishes, food and trash to sit out all night.

         But the next morning in the dining hall, the family campers found nothing out of place. The trash had been taken out. The dishes had been washed. And there was Scott, passed out on a couch back in Wayside at the end of the world.

each night

I am visited by an alternate reality

with a sense of loss I wake,

wandering through my day

mourning for what was, but wasn't

is there a version of me

I couldn't bear to lose?

an existence to both sleep and wake to?

         Chris stared at the small round pill with an E etched into the side for the third time in two hours.

         He told himself he was desperate, but not that desperate.

         It was the desperation keeping him awake–always the nights when he needed sleep the most that it evaded him the most. He set the pill back on his nightstand and tried not to look at the clock. His air conditioner buzzed loudly.

An important job interview tomorrow, and all he could think about was that comment Gary had made about the weeds growing out of his driveway. He had said it in a way that feigned helpfulness. 

“I have some extra round-up if you ever want to give a healthy dose of poison to those extra stubborn guys that won’t  die by just digging at ‘em!” his neighbor spoke as if Chris had already attempted weed extraction and just needed a new approach when they both knew he had not even noticed a problem until this conversation. The lawn was mowed on a regular basis and he kept the house in good shape, but there was always something. 

That simultaneously pitying and pushy look on Gary’s face was the same look Chris’s boss kept giving him at work when he caught him watching youtube or picking at his hangnails or doing anything at all other than the entering data he was tasked with.

“You know, Marla nearly tripled her productivity this month compared to when she first started here. Isn’t that amazing? It should inspire all of us to pick up some slack, huh, Chris? Can’t let the ladies beat us at everything.”

He couldn’t wait to get out of this dead-end job so he didn’t have to fake laugh at that sort of comment anymore. The interview tomorrow was the third this month–all appealing positions he was underqualified for. So far he had only succeeded in making a fool out of himself by trying to act like he could be what they wanted.

He suppressed a flashback to his last interview. The prospective employer had asked something totally innocent: “What professional achievement are you most proud of?”

Chris struggled to answer the question; stammered, stuttered and contemplated making something up, but was unable to think quickly enough. To his horror, tears sprung up in his voice as he choked out a, “I’m sorry—I’m not sure.” 

He felt his face get hot as the humiliation bubbled up in him all over again and he tossed his body back and forth a few more times, trying to shake out the memory. The air conditioner gave a particularly violent rattle. The small round pill caught his eye for a fourth time. 

“Look, I’ll get right down to it. This new product I’m selling has been so helpful to people–it truly sells itself. I’ve been so successful they even sent me a company car,” Carla had said. He braced himself for the typical multi level marketing spiel. Last time it was diet pills that supposedly burned fat just by breathing.

         “Did you know that almost 40% of Americans report getting insufficient sleep nightly? Evocation is the pill that is going to change that. It has been thoroughly tested for quality and its success rate is almost 100%. There is a money back guarantee but I haven’t heard of a single patron who has cashed in on that! Plus it has been approved by the World Wide Labs for Change Organization and it’s free of any substances banned by the NDBA. It’s all based on scientific research–they have even received several National Quality Certifications. I  promise you there is absolutely nothing else like it out there on the market.” 

Re-living the conversation, Chris grumbled from his bed, “You’re probably just peddling a pill filled with sawdust while some kingpin at the top rakes in the benefits of another successful placebo.” But at the time he had kept his mouth shut as she slid a small pill bottle across the table.

“This sample is free—three pills, no strings attached.”

Her words were creepily similar to how he imagined drug pushers got people addicted. But it didn’t matter if it was illegal or not. He had gone through enough pharmaceutical dependencies to know how this sort of thing worked. Finally managing to function without being on some prescribed something or other for depression, anxiety, insomnia, and even bipolar… he wasn’t eager to start down that road again. 

The therapists usually described it as a chemical imbalance. He had seen so many now, he could do the work for them. It was always a chemical imbalance and something about how his mother cared more about his father leaving than she ever cared about him. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt like Gary and his mom would get along well. They could complain about the weeds in his driveway together. 

He kicked off his blankets, accidentally looked at the clock and groaned. It was getting hot in here.

Was the air conditioner even working? All that noise for nothing. Why hadn’t he just called the landlord? He was unable to do that simple thing. Unable to get to sleep. Unable to get through a job interview without a breakdown. Unable to keep up a proper driveway.

He sat on the edge of the bed again, pill in his hand, and muttered, “Screw it.”  He pushed the pill to the back of his mouth with his tongue, and swallowed.

The instant he set his head on the pillow and closed his eyes, a panic coursed through him so strong it made the anxiety previously keeping him awake seem mild–even peaceful–by comparison. He tried opening his eyes but the room was darker than before, and everything was out of focus. 

The panic was mounting even stronger. He tried to move to get up but his body was strangely disobedient, and he found himself screaming, wailing, unable to stop. As he screamed he became unaware of absolutely everything except one pervasive thought: I am alone, I am alone, I am alone.

Then–swooping in from above–he was lifted off his back by what could only be a GIANT person. The back of his neck was now being nestled securely in the crook of a large, strong arm while a second arm wrapped around his body and a voice had both forgotten about and been longing to hear said, “Hush now, you’re alright, you’re alright.”

He felt the panic melt away and his crying softened to a whimper. He was now swaying with the warm soft being back and forth and her gentle voice was speaking again, “You’re my favorite thing in the world. You’re perfect and wonderful and you are everything I’ve ever wanted. There’s no one like you. I’m so glad I get to hold you. I love you. I’m so glad. Shhhh shhh shh…” and he drifted into a deep, deep sleep.

Three days later and ready to buy more no matter the cost, Chris scrolled through the Evocation Sleeping Pill website. He felt like he could have written the too-good-to-be-true testimonies himself.

“Never knew my head could feel this clear… This is the best I’ve felt in years… who would’ve thought having a good night’s sleep could change your life?”

He skimmed through the “how it works” section, his eyes flitting through the explanation.

“...activates the memory receptors in your brain, gaining access to core memories… targets experiences when high cortisol levels diminished quickly… recreates the experience of going from anxiety to serenity, allowing you to achieve the sound sleep you deserve…”

Chris swallowed hard. He had just assumed Evocation was a pill that gave its users hallucinations of being rocked to sleep like a baby. It simply did not occur to him that he was remembering something real.

Instead of clicking, “add to cart,” he closed his laptop. Somehow he knew would no longer need it.

Sonorous wailing like sirens in the night

Leaching their way into my dreams, but I

Expected this and so I

Exit,

Pleading that this is the last time tonight