TERRI KAY

IT IS FOUR IN THE MORNING following one humid and silent August night and Guy Kelton has not fallen asleep yet. For several hours he has been twisting and turning in bed trying to find the best sleeping position, keeping his eyes shut with relentless effort. Every now and then he would open them wide and for few seconds stare at the darkness surrounding him, seeing murky blue objects so hard to identify surrounding him. For a fraction of a second he would recognize these objects as other than they truly are. This fraction though, seems to last long enough to startle away any drowsiness he would have been feeling. Things would appear monstrous to him in this lone fraction of a second, demonic and harmful. Sometimes he sees what would look like a horrid face staring with rigid large eyes at him, or some malign alien creature ready to attack him, gore him and devour him, and sometimes he thinks that the cupboard or closet are coming alive, somehow, to come and get him. Every night he watches late night television – Conon O'Brien is his favorite, never failing to make him laugh - or he reads whatever magazine he can get his hands on until one or two in the morning before attempting to go to sleep. Sometimes when he is on his bed, praying for some sleep, he takes off the blanket, other times he wraps himself in it. Sometimes sleeps on his belly, other times on his back but he rarely sleeps on his sides, a habit that he has not understood and one that keeps him wondering whether other people were like him when it comes to sleep. It's strange how a man can yearn so much for something, want it so badly to a degree where the soul of this man no longer accepts it, even if and when it arrives.

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QuixotiQ by Ali Al Saeed, (iUniverse ©2004). All rights reserved.