Sunday, January 01, 2006

36 :

Sometimes it’s impossible to sleep. Sometimes it’s impossible to wake. Sometimes it’s impossible to make sense of life. Or anything.

We often slept apart. The cliches is that we die as we dream. Alone. Even next to her in bed, we slept alone. Even making love, I was alone.

Sleep has always been my enemy : her friend. Sleeping was an enemy to be wrestled and defeated, beaten into submission by the exhaustion of wills. For her, sleep was a comfort, a place to be embraced and enjoyed. Rarely does she feel that though. Even in her sleep she knows she could wake and face the man who could kill her. At any time.

She awoke with a start. Ripped out of sleep by some sense of something somewhere being unright. Of the world being wrong, awkward. Of misplaced, missing pieces of sleep, of fractured stolen moments and broken seconds. That somewhere, something in the world was wrong.

That’s a normal feeling, But this time something somewhere was very wrong.

She turned over in that temporary state, the one of some cosseted confusion, eyes glued shut with sleep, unfocused. A delicate hand of perfect fingernails reached over, fumbled with a small plastic box, turned it over –

Focusing slowly on a series of zeroes and ones. The time. 1.44am.

Dammit. That’s late. Any minute now he’ll be coming back. The taxi will be dropping him off outside. That familiar, reassuring hum of car engines running at low revs, the slam of doors, the rustle of changes and tips. Any minute now.

He must have missed the last tube. Must have stayed out too late for once. Been tempted by that one drink too many. Everybody does at some time. Everybody does that. It’s only human to be tempted. Only normal.

One drink becomes one drink too many. For recovering alcoholics one drink too many is always the last drink they had. For others, one drink becomes two, becomes more than two, becomes just one more, becomes one too many.

That was it.

But this is so unlike him. He’s never done this before. In the early days of love, in the first blossoms of youth, always each side attentive, keen, hoping not to place that foot in the wrong place, to guide love’s arrow true and fair.

But not like this. He’s never done this before. Never been this late.

She dialled his number. Blinked slowly. Waited for that familiar voice. The way he always said the same thing, the familiar words, the reassurance that felt like home.

Ring. Ring. The cold electronic burr that leapt out across the atmosphere, a radar signal pinging into nothingness.

No reply.

She looked again at the clock. Three small red figures. One. Four. Six. She yawned. And disappeared back into the womb of sleep.

3.12am.

A sudden jolt of adrenaline. Something was wrong. Rose from the bed, her naked skin cold to the chill of the air. Opened a window and looked out into the darkness of the night.

She fumbled in a drawer. Found a box she’d hidden there for emergencies. Tried, trembling fingers tore at sellophane and flipped a lid.

She lit a cigarette. Fuck. She’s been doing so well. Trying to give up for so long now. Three months now. A day at a time, but still, everyone relapses sometime. You never become a person, never break free, you’re always an addict in recovery.

Once a junkie, always a junkie. The memories don’t wipe clean.

She inhaled. That sweet rush of adrenalin to the veins. The unclenching of muscle. The wide opening of the pupils as the body wakes. A yawn. Another call. A long slow wait.

An endless pinging into nothingness again. A prayer to an empty sky.

Something’s wrong.

What if? Maybe had? How come? Possibly?

Sometimes it is not the answer but the question that is important. To get the answre syou need to know the questions.

Time crawled. Seconds felt like minutes. Felt like hours. With every unanswered question, every new possibility, every moment of fear and uncertainty, options narrowed to just one thing.

Her hands trembling, ash flicking involuntarily from shaking hands, she dialled another number. Three short digits. One she knew would reply.

And then she collapsed into sleep some time in the near future.

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