***hey, new version of chapter one
tell me if you like it, drop a comment!
i cant wait for all of your opinions xxx***
“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”- Christopher Reeve.
Chapter One
It’s three am. I roll over on my bed so that I can see the clock. Even the sun isn’t up yet. I see the time and know exactly why I’m awake.
I can’t sleep. I haven’t been able to for months.
I’ve tried pills, and they’ve been useless. I’ve tried counting sheep but I almost got up to one thousand once. I’m sure you’re not supposed to do that. Most people fall asleep around the thirties or the forties. Some even fifties. But nine hundred and eighty-five; I may as well have just stayed awake.
I’ve been to therapy. The best therapist in all of Colorado just happened to be my neighbour. You think he’d be a big-shot, living in a huge mansion with a model wife and as many cars as he had kids; that’s four, by the way. But Mr Aaron Michaels lived on the same, quiet Hamlet Hill like Jared and I.
Jared is my attention-seeking cat, and he is named after Jared Padalecki, who bares this crazy resemblance to my brother.
Aaron lives with his Monday to Tuesday girlfriend. She’s tall, not as tall as Aaron, but tall enough to model. His Wednesday to Friday girlfriend is a smart, college brunette. She’s head of everything, you name it. His weekend girlfriend is a blonde, like Monday to Tuesday, but she’s married. He’s a respectable man with three girlfriends – it might sound crazy, but this can all be explained through some logical theory that only he could come up with. In other words, it was a ‘psychologist thing’. No other human being could possibly understand.
“This isn’t healthy, Cassie.”
“You’re telling me.” I say, making a loud sigh. I’m sitting up now and staring at him with tear-filled eyes, “I-I don’t know what do anymore.”
“Have you tried-?”
“No, Doctor,” I cut in, “The question is ‘what haven’t I tried’?”
“I’ve never heard of sleep deprivation being this bad. Usually nightmares fade after a couple of days, maybe weeks, but yours has been happening for months, did you say?”
I nod slowly, dab my eyes dry.
“What did you say you saw?”
“Well, it’s almost impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible, Miss James.” He gives me a reassuring smile, as I start my story. Another costly therapy session and I’ve stopped wondering if we’ll ever get to square two.
It’s not a condition I learn – it’s just nightmares. Nightmares of the same thing. So that night, I roll back over and I close my eyes, but I know I’ll be up in another thirty minutes or so. I sigh as I start to drift off, hoping this time I won’t wake. But I do.
In a sense, it’s not the lying awake part that I hate. It’s the silence. It’s the fact that I must lay there in the dead of night, when the sound of cars has faded into the sound of dust settling.
I clutch my blanket as I listen to my own blinking, and I anticipate. I wait for the crash of a broken window or maybe even the movement of unsteady plates in the dishwasher, but nothing. I wait for the shrill scream of an attack in the darkness. But mostly I wait for the smoke to drift in like huge, black hands ready to consume you in it's choking, unforgiving fingers, just like in the nightmare.
It’s the sound of my own breathing that drives me crazy. Long, slow breaths that even the mice cannot hear as they scramble across the house undeterred.
They say the sunrise is one of the earth’s greatest sights. I say it’s the start of when I begin to gather up and regain little pieces of my sanity and attempt to put myself back together like a scattered puzzle.
YOU ARE READING
Shh - Eyes Down, Mouth Shut.
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