SLEEP

Sleep

I want to sleep for hours, days, weeks at a time

No disturbance, no human interaction or interruption

Nourishment would not be an option due to risk of morning nausea

What a beautiful thing

All the fears and sorrow of daily life are gone into thin air like the gray last -        breath of an addict who’s shot his last spoonful

Dead like the wind

Live like lions at the helm of their prey

“Practically petrified skin and bones after a few months under. Can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone go this long. Two weeks longer even than ‘The Tank’.

Dr. Unger stands, paper thin from a side view, in front of what appears to be a man under deep hypnosis.  His assistant, Nurse Mabel, gazes from directly behind his right shoulder in awe of the whole scene, occasionally raising the fingertips of a flat right hand to cover her mouth to stifle a gasp at the shell of a man laying on a frigid chrome colored slab and covered by a wafer-thin white linen sheet.

“What’s ‘The Tank’?” Nurse Mabel inquires. Her eyes never leave the man on the chrome slab.

The Doctor, while writing some notes on his clipboard, replies to such a question.

“That’s what we used to call the man who was being held in 37B…”

He pauses for a moment to tap his pencil in concentration.

“Yeh, never thought I’d see another one of him. Complete animal, nearly withered away to nothing, not to mention the mental fatigue after he wakes up with a year missing from his life. We call him The Tank because of all the drugs we pumped into that body of his.”

Nurse Mabel’s eyes made a quick switch over to Doc Unger who was still writing and tapping his pencil.

“Poor man,” she said. “That poor, poor man. He must be a wreck after all that.”

She shook her head from side to side. 

“Poor?!” The old Doctor chuckled and slapped his knees with the clipboard.

He had the laugh of a staggering old geezer. His S’s rang in your ears and his P’s involved much saliva.

“Well that’s no way to talk about the man you love!”

Confused, Nurse Mabel scrunched her brow.

“Huh? The man I love??”

“Why yes my dear,” said the Good Doctor.  “Don’t you remember?”

“Remember what, Doctor? Is everything okay?”

“Yes, yeeeesssss. Everything is just fine. You’re sssafe here Mrss. Grady.”

Nurse Mabel becomes very nervous. She tries to ignore the hairs standing on her neck, the cold chills throughout her extremities. She has felt this way many times before.

“Grady? My name isn’t Muh-misses Grady. It’s Mabel! Mabel!  Dr. what’s happening?”

Nurse Mabel starts to feel sick to her stomach. She buckles over in searing pain, eyes closed, mouth open but expels no sound. Only faint squealing whispers of intolerable pain. Much like when crying reaches the point of no sound. Only minor jerks of the head to move along with the whimpering and gasping for breath after breath until it’s “all better now”.

High frequency sirens blare from the walls of the room. Her vision is blurry. She hears nothing but the sirens and her own heart beating, pounding like thunder. Faster and faster. Closer together now until it all swirls together in a vortex of sight and sound, light and violent, blistering numbness…. 

“Well, hello there Mrs. Grady. Glad to see you’re still with us.” The sharp features of fearless Dr. Unger blurry and abstract but only inches from her face. His breath was of stale black coffee and formaldehyde. Cold Black Death.

“Well, Mrs. Grady, it seems you’ve had quite a sspell.”

She did her best to witness her body with her own eyes, but couldn’t have possibly believed the truth even if her eyes WERE able to open, which, of course, they were not.

“Petrified sskin and bone!” Said the good Doctor. “Almost nothing to her.”

Nurse Mabel, semi-conscious, half-opens her eyes while she squirms on the cold chrome-colored slab of aluminum. She mumbles a few syllables, then shouts something like, “Mabel! Nurse! (Mumbles) Shark serum, half a glass, two to taste. Have’em by morning or I’ll have your hide!”

The awe inspiring Dr. Unger shrugs a shrug of indifference.

“Sshe’s completely goddamned delusional…  Well ladies and germs, this is where the scientific world gets off the train. From hereon it’s all up to the bastards upstairs. We tried. That’s all we can do….”

He turns from his patient to address one of his assistants.

“Take her back to her room please, Nursse…  37B.”

Unger quickly washes his hands then walks outside to smoke a long, much needed cigarette. Lights up. Takes one loooong drag towards death, and exhales with a vision of the eternal void. A sigh runs through him like lightening. From lungs, to throat and finally escapes his old, wrinkled, pouty mouth. 

Just imagine, the fearless, confident, genius Doctor Unger, hopelessly sighing away over his first ever experimental failure.

“Never see another one like her again, that’s for sshure. Ssshkin and bone….”