New Adventures in Sleep Paralysis

I call him Tarab.

I do not think he knows this. I do not think he would like this very much if he did know.

They say that in olden times, people believed that names held power. People believed that if you knew the name of someone or of something, then you held a sort of power over that person or that thing. Names limited the named.

People believed that. I mean, if what I have read is true, they did. Seriously.

Think “Rumplestiltskin.” Think Adam naming all those animals over which he was to have dominion.

I do not think Tarab wants to be named. I do not think Tarab wants to be limited. To be perfectly honest, I do not think Tarab wants me to write about him.

But the way I figure it, you are not going to believe any of this anyway, so I’ve got nothing to lose by telling you nothing but the truth. And the truth – the truth that you are more than likely not going to believe – is that Tarab and I have reached an odd sort of arrangement.

For his part in this arrangement, Tarab gives me information. Answers. Advice. Predictions.

And me? For my part? I give Tarab rum. Oh, and sometimes, I carry out his orders.

Dear Dana,

I don’t listen for the gate anymore.

For many years, I did. I listened. Even while I was asleep, I listened.

I’d get home from work and I would take a nap. It was always my best sleep of the whole day! I mean it: It was the only time when I can ever remember dreaming.

But then, an hour would pass, or maybe an hour and a half, and then I’d hear the gate. In my sleep, I’d hear it, and that would be you. That was you opening the automatic gate across the driveway. Then I’d hear the clack from your front tires driving across the metal track for the gate, and that was you. Then I’d hear the clack from your back tires driving across the metal track for the gate, and that was you, too. The whoosh of your car accelerating down the driveway.

I’d hear the sound of your car doors. You.

And the cats would crawl out from under the bed. And the girls would stumble out from their room, because they’d have heard you, too.

And I’d stretch…

Every single day.

Sleep. Gate. Stretch. Repeat.

Then the day came when you were gone, and I knew you were really gone, and I was okay. I swear I was okay! You were gone, and the cats were gone, and for a long time, even the kids were gone.

I knew you were gone, Dana… or most of me knew you were gone, anyway.

But not all of me knew.

In the days and in the weeks and in the months after that, I’d still take those naps. When I took those naps, I would still dream, and you were still in most of the dreams. Of course you were in most of the dreams. Sometimes only as a sort of presence at my elbow – someone for me to narrate my actions towards – but you were there.

Then an hour would pass, or maybe an hour and a half, and something inside me would say, “Katy, it is time to wake up!”  But I’d be waiting for the sound of that gate, you know?

The gate would never open. No clack and no doors and no cats and no kids.

No stretch!

Not in September… October… November… December. And January came – and you were long, long gone by then, even from my dreams! – but these fucking naps would sort of betray me. I was still listening for you in my naps.

I’m not even sure when that changed, exactly, but it changed.

I don’t listen for the gate anymore.

Everything is different now.

In fact, I probably won’t even send you this letter.

Sober

I am sitting on a mattress. The mattress is on the floor. The floor is in my apartment.

I am sitting here on this mattress and I am watching a tarantula. The tarantula is inside a plastic box. The plastic box is on the floor in my apartment, like my mattress is.

This plastic box, it is clear like an aquarium. It is not an aquarium, but it’s close enough, you know? You know what I mean.

I have convinced myself that the tarantula is preparing to molt. Any minute now, it is going to flip itself onto its back and then climb right out of its old skin. In my head, this is what I am telling myself. This molt is going to happen. I just need to keep watching.