The room was mostly dark. Only the glow of the street lamps seeped through the closed blinds, hanging in a rough yellow patch near the window, but it never threatened to move further, to inch closer and closer toward the solid white walls and light up the room, bouncing from one reflective surface to the next. That was fine with John. He'd seen enough light lately.
He lay still in the bed, beneath a layer of stiff hospital sheets and a blanket that could double as a Brillo pad. He was drained, both physically and emotionally, yet he couldn't sleep. More than that, he didn't want to sleep. He forced himself to lay awake, afraid that he would awaken to find himself in an even more precarious situation. After all, the last time he surrendered complete control of his conscious mind ended with a suicide attempt that he still couldn't fully rationalize.
He wasn't sure he could if he could move, even if he wanted to, and made no effort to prove himself wrong. This state, however brief, was peace, or at least the closest thing to it he'd found so far. A steady hum from the ventilation system vibrated through the walls, and its drone became absorbed and accepted until he no longer realized that it was there. He stared at the ceiling, vacant and unconcerned with the world around him. An occasional flash of light from the window caught his eye, but he attributed these to headlights in the parking lot or helicopters flitting through the air with patients in tow like dragonflies--large, metal dragonflies.
His mind drifted to nonsense and recollected tales of alien abductions he'd read in the UFO Museum. He remembered people describing a feeling of numbness and helplessness. They were unable to move. They heard noises on the other side of the door, felt the impression of something with mass flattening them against the bed, and saw shapes of things that weren't quite human standing silently by their feet. But John could recognize the signs of sleep paralysis, the conditions of which he'd only read about. When the brain wakes before the body, the sensation is often one of awareness accompanied by the inability to move. In this state, the mind can play tricks on the victims. They experience things that can be better described as waking dreams. There are no aliens keeping vigil at the foot of the bed, only the frightened exaggerations of a mind that cannot accept a loss of self-control. For John, this was the ultimate expression of self-control. His was a voluntary paralysis, a defiance of a greater power that would have him, for better or worse, act.
Evan was gone, but his impression had been left behind--an echo. He'd given John something to believe in again. He'd given him hope that there was some strange purpose in life, that there was a way to fight back against entropy, that not all things fall apart, that sometimes the center can hold. He'd reassured him that there were others out in the wide world, just the same as him. They'd seen things that others could not. They'd seen a light and the movement within. But most of all, Evan had given him that which he had needed most--a place to belong, family, and though there was no blood relation to be found, John realized that he'd had a brother all along.
Evan leaned against the balcony, his forehead pressed against the inner angle of his elbow. An empty bottle of Baliol whiskey sat beside him, and its disembodied odor hung heavy in the air. Lights glared all around him--street lamps and lit up advertisements, the glow of his hotel room and the building across the boulevard, the parade of headlights along the highway. The pulsing city sounds wrenched their way inside his head, and he could hear it all--the steady flow of traffic, sirens blaring from miles away, the muted cacophony of television from every room in the hotel. It was all white noise. It was a bombardment of sound and radiance so intense and invasive that his brain began to perceive one sense as the other.
All the car horns were flashing when he opened his eyes, and the street lamps were all screaming. He tried to focus, to push all the extraneous fanfare from his mind and hone in on a singular, distant signal. He stared into the night sky, straining to see the stars through all the light pollution. Explosions rocked all around.
At last, he could see them. He could hear them. They spoke, but only to him.
"Yes, I can hear you. Yes, we'll be there."
He collapsed in a heap on the concrete platform, where he lay unconscious for the next few hours. Just before dawn, he awoke and crawled back into his room. After struggling to grasp the bed spread, he climbed on top of the bed and lay there until sunlight came spilling in through the open balcony door.
He lay still in the bed, beneath a layer of stiff hospital sheets and a blanket that could double as a Brillo pad. He was drained, both physically and emotionally, yet he couldn't sleep. More than that, he didn't want to sleep. He forced himself to lay awake, afraid that he would awaken to find himself in an even more precarious situation. After all, the last time he surrendered complete control of his conscious mind ended with a suicide attempt that he still couldn't fully rationalize.
He wasn't sure he could if he could move, even if he wanted to, and made no effort to prove himself wrong. This state, however brief, was peace, or at least the closest thing to it he'd found so far. A steady hum from the ventilation system vibrated through the walls, and its drone became absorbed and accepted until he no longer realized that it was there. He stared at the ceiling, vacant and unconcerned with the world around him. An occasional flash of light from the window caught his eye, but he attributed these to headlights in the parking lot or helicopters flitting through the air with patients in tow like dragonflies--large, metal dragonflies.
His mind drifted to nonsense and recollected tales of alien abductions he'd read in the UFO Museum. He remembered people describing a feeling of numbness and helplessness. They were unable to move. They heard noises on the other side of the door, felt the impression of something with mass flattening them against the bed, and saw shapes of things that weren't quite human standing silently by their feet. But John could recognize the signs of sleep paralysis, the conditions of which he'd only read about. When the brain wakes before the body, the sensation is often one of awareness accompanied by the inability to move. In this state, the mind can play tricks on the victims. They experience things that can be better described as waking dreams. There are no aliens keeping vigil at the foot of the bed, only the frightened exaggerations of a mind that cannot accept a loss of self-control. For John, this was the ultimate expression of self-control. His was a voluntary paralysis, a defiance of a greater power that would have him, for better or worse, act.
Evan was gone, but his impression had been left behind--an echo. He'd given John something to believe in again. He'd given him hope that there was some strange purpose in life, that there was a way to fight back against entropy, that not all things fall apart, that sometimes the center can hold. He'd reassured him that there were others out in the wide world, just the same as him. They'd seen things that others could not. They'd seen a light and the movement within. But most of all, Evan had given him that which he had needed most--a place to belong, family, and though there was no blood relation to be found, John realized that he'd had a brother all along.
***
Evan leaned against the balcony, his forehead pressed against the inner angle of his elbow. An empty bottle of Baliol whiskey sat beside him, and its disembodied odor hung heavy in the air. Lights glared all around him--street lamps and lit up advertisements, the glow of his hotel room and the building across the boulevard, the parade of headlights along the highway. The pulsing city sounds wrenched their way inside his head, and he could hear it all--the steady flow of traffic, sirens blaring from miles away, the muted cacophony of television from every room in the hotel. It was all white noise. It was a bombardment of sound and radiance so intense and invasive that his brain began to perceive one sense as the other.
All the car horns were flashing when he opened his eyes, and the street lamps were all screaming. He tried to focus, to push all the extraneous fanfare from his mind and hone in on a singular, distant signal. He stared into the night sky, straining to see the stars through all the light pollution. Explosions rocked all around.
At last, he could see them. He could hear them. They spoke, but only to him.
"Yes, I can hear you. Yes, we'll be there."
He collapsed in a heap on the concrete platform, where he lay unconscious for the next few hours. Just before dawn, he awoke and crawled back into his room. After struggling to grasp the bed spread, he climbed on top of the bed and lay there until sunlight came spilling in through the open balcony door.
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