Sleep.

WN here. This is my attempt at third person. :)

She awakens to the taste of blood. She can’t see clearly in the twilight. Is it morning or evening? Is this even her own bed? Her own room? Her mind spins crookedly and then flips upside-down in the momentary panic of waking up in a strange place. Her hand automatically reaches to the bedside table for her iPhone. What time is it?

But her hand doesn’t move. She can’t move her arms. Legs? No, not her legs either. She swallows painfully despite the metallic tang in her mouth. Did she bite her tongue in her sleep? There is a crushing weight on her chest, like an enormous stone is pressing her into the mattress. The red terror that is hovering around her peripheral vision begins to subside. This is a nightmare. Horrible, yet comfortingly familiar at the same time. She has had this dream since she was a little girl. Just like that dream where she’s falling, she can either force herself to wake up, or she can retreat deeper into sleep, where it’s safe again. She slips into the black.

She’s throwing papers. It’s 3:30 a.m. Her night job. She hikes up one short flight of stairs and emerges into a beautiful, quiet upscale apartment building. 2401, Times. Orange County Register at 2404, 2405, 2406. Quickly to the elevator and up. She collects the papers for the the third floor, then quickly stands before the elevator begins its quick ascent. She has learned from uncomfortable experience that if she is bending over her messenger bag when the car lurches upward, the force pulls unmercifully at the soreness in her lower back. She allows herself a quick glance at the phone in her pocket. No Service, it reads at the top. For such a lovely and obviously expensive apartment complex, it would be the most annoying thing ever to have no phone service. She slips the phone back in her pocket. Not likely anyone will be texting or calling at 3:45 a.m., but every night she is hopeful enough to wear pants with a pocket so she won’t miss it if someone does. She leans back and half leans, half sits on the handrail in the back of the dark, wood-paneled elevator. She rests her head on the wall and allows her eyes to drift closed for the ten-second ride. April 12, 2014. That is the date the certificate of inspection expires. She knows the expiration date for every elevator she rides.

It’s getting light enough to see. Definitely not her own bed. She struggles for consciousness. To remember. Is she traveling? Has she been sleepwalking? There is light coming in the window. Flashes of light, actually. Shadows rise and fall amid the blinding flashes. Glowing orange, black, more flashes. Is she awake? She reaches for the phone but as she fumbles around, there is no bedside table, no phone. No alarm, no text. No familiar smooth button to recognize her thumbprint. It’s another dream. There is a momentary feeling of relief. She gets another few minutes of sleep. Maybe an hour. She has three alarms set in her phone. The first goes off at 1:35. The second, with a more jarring alert tone, at 1:40. At 2:15, if she has somehow managed to sleep through the first two alarms, a seriously nerve-shattering alarm labeled “Late to Work!” will propel her from awake to mild heart attack within two seconds. She hasn’t even heard the first one yet. Sleep. Glorious sleep. She leans into it and submerges back into the black.

She’s playing the piano. It has been weeks. Weeks since she even touched it. It doesn’t matter. The keys love her. She doesn’t look, or even really think, about what she is playing. Her mind makes the music, and it floats out of the beautiful Yamaha grand. There is no sheet music. It isn’t even something she is playing by ear. It just… is. Clashing. Two songs. Someone is playing John Legend. She loves that song. Usually she gets tired of a song they play that often on the radio, but not this one. She was just listening to it on her way home from the route this morning. “All of me… loves all of you…” But she can’t play her song and listen to that at the same time. It’s so loud. And underlying both songs, screaming. Someone nearby is screaming. She leans her head forward as she has done so many times and rests her forehead against the cool lid of the piano, and closes her eyes. Back to black.

Her room is on fire! Maybe the screaming was coming from her own parched lips. She can’t even tell. There is just fire. It’s getting closer. The very little she can see is distorted in the  waves of heat the blaze generates. Would you rather die by burning or drowning? Neither, she smiles. It’s one of those moments she is so glad it’s just a dream. She even knows what this one is about. When she got home from work this morning, Mike was on her computer. “Did you hear about the bus tragedy?” he asked. No, but could it wait until she had had a couple of hours of sleep at least? Okay, she thought it, but didn’t say it. “No, what bus tragedy?” Turns out a Fedex truck jumped the center divider near Orland, California and hit a bus full of high school students on their way to Humboldt College in Northern California. Both drivers, three chaperones, and five kids, all dead. Not only that, but some lucky(?) motorist managed to stop and take the most graphically, horrifically awesome photos of both vehicles entwined in a mangled metallic mess, completely engulfed in flame. Just like this. Just a dream. Just this morning. Or was it yesterday? She couldn’t remember.

What she did remember was Mike’s question: “How could this even happen? What would make him jump the divider and take so many lives?” I remember thinking, “Do you really not know? Because I do.” She had just gotten home from work like so many other mornings where she would strip off her sweaty clothes for a shower, and see red handprints on her thighs where she had slapped herself at red lights to keep herself awake for that twenty torturous minutes home. There is nothing quite like trying to stay awake when every instinct in your body and mind is pulling at you, is there? Sleep… sleep. just sleep. It’s so easy. It feels so good. Sleep. Was that just this morning, or was it yesterday? Day before yesterday? The heat is starting to sear her lungs with every breath. She takes practiced, shallow breaths and thinks the alarm hasn’t gone off yet. Sleep. Blessed black sleep.

Mike is getting their youngest ready for school when he hears it. There is nothing worse than the sound of a crash. There was a deadly accident there at the intersection in front of the shopping center two mornings ago. They really need to do something about the lights, or something. He checks his Facebook on her computer, and yells at Cade to hurry and get his shoes on. He has too many tardies as it is, and he doesn’t want to get one of those stupid letters from the school. It seems like all they care about is that they get their money for attendance, so why do they care?

Put them on in the car! He grabs his son’s backpack and shoves a napkin-wrapped pop-tart into his hand. Breakfast of champions. Middle seat, he insists. Cade is too small for the airbags in the front seat. Mike urges him to tie his shoes and eat at the same time. He carefully drives the speed limit the one mile to the drop-off area. The place is always crawling with police just looking for some poor, unsuspecting soul this time of day. In fact, right now, it is literally crawling.

There are at least three police cars, a fire truck, an ambulance. And his wife’s car.

His heart stops. One beat. Two. And then it catches up and it is in his throat and behind his eyes and he suddenly can’t even feel his fingers on the wheel, as he pulls over behind the smoking wreckage. His knees buckle a little as he gets out of the car and walks over to the police officers milling around, and there are dark spots drifting around his vision as he sees a sheet-wrapped gurney sliding into the ambulance. “Somebody turn off that radio,” he hears someone order. And all he can hear is that song his wife likes so much. “My head’s under water, but I’m breathing fine.”