Somnia

I didn’t know what time it was. The lack of light seeping in from behind my curtains indicated that the sun was far from rising. Still, I could not fall back asleep. It wasn’t necessarily a nightmare that I’d had. It wasn’t like a horror movie, and I didn’t wake up with adrenaline coursing through me. I didn't feel afraid of anything lurking in my house; horrific visions didn't plague me. The dream I’d had was much worse than that.

It was a vision of slow, aching hopelessness and loneliness. I saw myself in an apartment, in the middle of the day, staring out of the window. No one was outside, as everyone was probably at work or at school. But I did not have any purpose in life, not even something as simple as a job. I was stuck there, alone, and the apartment was as empty as I felt inside. Since I’d woken up from the dream, my heart had been thumping low and deep in my chest. Thoughts ran through my mind frantically as I thrashed between my sheets, sweaty.

“That’s what’ll happen to me… that’s where I’ll be… it’s a vision,” I was convinced of this.

I threw the sheet and comforter off of myself and switched my bedside lamp on. I’d tried to distract myself from the thoughts for too long. Lying there any longer wouldn’t help. So I left my bedroom and headed to the kitchen.

The house was dark, the moon reflecting blue squares here and there across the hallway. I was becoming too used to the sight of the house at night. I refrained from turning any lights on so that I wouldn’t alert my parents or my brother. I still didn’t know what time it was, and I had school the next morning.

When I got to the kitchen, I could see that the yellow light of the refrigerator was shining.

“Hey,” I said, figuring it was my brother getting something to eat.

But someone much taller than him stood up. My heart stopped for a minute.

“Oh, hi,” he said. It was his friend, Nick.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I said, my heart still racing.

It startled me more than I would’ve imagined. I’d never really been alone with Nick. It wasn’t him that scared me, though. It was just strange seeing someone in my house when I wasn’t expecting it.

“I’m just now leaving,” he said.

“You’re not supposed to be here so late.”

I didn’t care that much about the rules, but I didn’t know what else to say. I was embarrassed standing there in my pajamas, even if he couldn’t see me very well. I still was not out of the daze from my dream, either, and I didn’t know what to say to him.

“Well, like I said, I’m leaving…”

“Take me with you,” I said.

I don’t know what made me say that, but it seemed perfect as soon as it came out.

“I know you’re not just going to go home now. Take me with you, please.”

Nick had a reputation in our village as one of the guys who was always drinking and going to parties. He was a quiet kind of person, however, who would only throw in sarcastic comments every once in a while. He always wore a smirk on his face, and he did as I persisted with him.

“Are you stupid? I can’t do that,” he laughed, “Besides, what are you going to wear, your pajamas?”

He shut the refrigerator, walking away with a coke.

“I can change! Please, take me,” I asked again.

He paused and stared me down from under his heavy brow. His face was uncharacteristically serious for a moment.

“Sure, whatever. But don’t blame me when you get caught,” he said.

I rolled my eyes.

“Just wait here for a second,” I told him.

“Hurry up.”

I went back to my room and stripped out of my clothes, scouring my closet for something to wear. I put on a pair of jeans and a black pullover. I had no idea where we were going, and I didn’t really care what I looked like. Before I left my room, I put on my socks and the black leather boots I’d worn to school.

Nick was standing right outside my room when I opened the door, and this time he startled me so much that I jumped. He muttered this quiet laugh that I’d never heard from him before.

~

I didn’t ask him where we were going. We walked on the cobblestone toward town, the purple sky looming overhead. The sky was what I’d imagined when I was told the story of the three wise men as a child. The moon was yellow, the stars white, gleaning along our pathway in an imperfect stripe. I wondered if it looked like this every night at that time, and if we were all missing out by sleeping through it.

Nick didn’t seem to notice, but maybe that was because he was used to it. Maybe the outside was what attracted him to going out so late, subconsciously. The ritual of walking the streets in that mystical atmosphere.

“Why do you want to come with me?”

I didn’t know the answer.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said.

“Bad dream?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

He shrugged.

“I have bad dreams sometimes. That’s why I like going out at night.”

“Don’t you ever sleep?”

“No, I don’t,” he smiled.

We were walking between buildings now, and were approaching the city center. The only places open were pubs and bars. The one club in town was only open on Friday and Saturday nights.

“I bet you thought we’d be going there,” Nick said, pointing toward Angel’s bar.

“I didn’t know where you were going,” I admitted.

“Well it’s not there.”

We had an unspoken pact that he wouldn’t tell me where we were going, and that I wouldn’t ask. But the longer that we walked on, the more curious I became. We passed through the town completely and ended up in a neighborhood on the other side. He led me into someone’s backyard eventually, and he stared up at their window.

“Whose house is this?” I asked him.

“Doesn’t matter,” he replied, “But you’re going to crawl through that window and get something for me.”

I laughed.

“No, I mean it. I need the books they have up there. I know exactly where they are.”

He walked closer toward the house and I followed him. I was in some kind of a trance because of the darkness, because of my sleepiness. I hadn’t seen any light since I’d woken up.

He grabbed a ladder that was leaning against the side of the shed, and aligned it with the upstairs window.

“They’re three books, on a table that’s next to the bed. Just grab them and come back down.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No, it’ll be fine. No one is home here. They’re out of town. This guy stole my books and I need them back for school.”

I didn’t even know what to say.

“If you do it, we can go to Angel’s. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t safe.”

I sighed.

“Yeah, sure.”

He smiled.

“Okay, I’ll hold onto the ladder while you climb up.”

He held it firmly to the ground as I put my foot on the first rung. It took only a couple of minutes until I was at the top. The window was already cracked slightly, and I pushed it all the way up and let myself in.

I had to keep myself from gasping. In gray of the room, I could make out at least one figure laying on a bed, possibly two. I looked around quickly and saw the books stacked on the table. One by one, I threw them down to Nick. I slid back out of the window and stepped down the rungs of the ladder.

I shoved him.

“There are people in there!”

“Well you’re okay, aren’t you?”

I shoved him again.

“What if they had a gun and they shot me?”

“I knew he wouldn’t - it’s my professor and he’s against guns,” he said.

I rolled my eyes at him, and started on my way back to the road.

“Wait!”

I didn’t turn around, but he caught up with me.

“I wanted to show you something,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

He thinks I’m a joke.

I didn’t say anything and kept walking. I thought it would be any minute before he just laughed at me and walked away. But he hit me with the book and then shoved it into my hand. Dreams by Carl Gustav Jung.

“I wanted you to read this. It has helped me a lot over the years.”

I stopped walking and flipped through the book.

“My professor took these books from me because I was reading them during class.”

I looked up at him. His blue eyes shined with the light of the moon. I didn’t understand why he cared that I was angry at him.

“Oh,” I said, and kept walking.

He still followed.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten you to do that,” he said, and grabbed my arm.

I was reveling in his guilt.

“It wasn’t a very nice thing to do, but it’s over now, isn’t it?” I said, and handed him the book back.

“Well, will you still come with me?” he asked.

His orangish blond hair shone under the flickering street light above us.

“I wanted to show you something.”

~

Half an hour later, we were walking in the woods outside of town. The grass got higher the further we walked, until it was grazing our middle-calves.

The first time I’d met Nick, he and my brother were standing together outside school. I was twelve, and he was probably fourteen. My brother had teased me, as he always did, and Nick had laughed at me. I felt especially embarrassed that time, however, because Nick was so strange that he was respectable somehow. He was very tall, and he seemed different from the other students. He wasn’t so stupid, maybe.

Now that I was alone with him, I could see exactly how strange he was. He spoke so little, but when you looked at him, his strange ideas reflected back into you.

Despite how long we’d been walking, the sun was still nowhere to be found. I knew I’d never be able to make it to school now.

~

As the sun finally rose, we ended up deep in the woods, at an especially old tree.

“Here it is,” he said.

“What?”

“Come on.”

He began climbing the tree, and as I watched him, I realized there was a tree house attached. I followed, imagining myself slipping because I was so tired.

After three or four branches, we could crawl into the entrance of the wooden structure. Inside, there were pillows, blankets, candles, and dozens of books scattered everywhere. It looked like heaven to me in that moment. My eyes were so heavy that I could hardly keep them open anymore.

“When I can’t sleep, I always come out here,” he said.

“You sleep here?”

He nodded.

“And read,” he said. “My grandfather built this for my father when he was a child. He owns this plot of land but no one lives out here anymore.”

He laid out one of the blankets.

“No one knows that I come out here, not even my family. And I would prefer to keep it that way.”

“Why then,” I asked him, “Why would you bring me out here?”

“I know I can trust you. And I thought that maybe it would help you sleep.”

I felt this feeling inside, like I was letting go of something, but like something new was happening too. I never thought that Nick could be so caring, especially to someone like me.

“Well, thank you.”

He just smiled to himself, as he propped pillows at the end of the blankets that he’d stacked. I realized that this bed was probably being made for me.

“Do you think you might be able to sleep now?” he asked me.

“Here?”

He nodded.

I took off my shoes.

“I can try.”

I laid down between the blankets, and laid my head against one of the pillows. Somehow, it was much more comfortable than my bed.

Nick opened Dreams and started reading to me as my eyes finally fell closed.