Sleep

Anna is tired again today. The light slants in the window, cold and pale, and fills the room with stillness. It makes Anna unable to make a sound, not even whispering seems allowed in this desolate calm. She stands at the window, her forehead resting on the cold pane, making her head ache with the chill.

Outside on the street below, people go about their business, trudging through the snow, passing in and out of the shops as if it is somehow worth it. Like there is something worth living for. She presses her hand against the glass, spreading her fingers and pushing as if trying to get back into that world, but it doesn’t give way, and so she gives up and turns away from the glass.

Her head bowed, she makes her way to the kitchen. She stands there, her feet bare on the cold tile, and looks around, but forgets the cup of coffee she came for, and instead drifts on into the bedroom. It is empty except for her bed, the wrought-iron headboard and soft white sheets, the thick down comforters her only extravagance. She is disgusted by it now. Last night she had been drunk and stupid enough to destroy its goodness, its purity, with some man from the bar.

He is gone now. She isn’t even certain of his name, Blake, or Blaine, or … well, it doesn’t really matter anyway. He was the same man as all the others, the ones she left before the sun came up. This time, she had had to throw him out, despite his protestations. He had to be gone before dawn, and so she forced him out. She hadn’t been able to sleep at all, not in that bed, not anywhere in her apartment. He had managed to defile the whole thing with a few words. With one glance around at the spartan rooms, he remarked, “Oh, have you just moved in, then?” She had been too embarrassed to admit she had lived there for almost five years.

And so now, the morning is bright and cold and clear, but she doesn’t feel redeemed by it. She dreads going to work in a few hours, dreads leaving her apartment, dreads being forced to interact with people who repulse her. She loathes having to act normal, act like there is no problem, act like she is happy, act like she likes being alive.

Everyone goes about their daily business as if they don’t feel this way, and maybe they don’t. Maybe they have different pills than she does, because hers don’t seem to be helping much. And why are the pills even necessary? Why isn’t the world enough on its own?

She sighs and pads into the bathroom, and opens the medicine cabinet, taking out the bottle that is supposed to make everything okay. She closes the door and looks at the girl in the mirror.

When had her eyes gotten so sad? She could remember when Daniel was alive, they looked so happy, almost giddy, all the time.
She hadn’t thought about him in years, except for every day. Daniel was such a good name, solid and reliable and loving. She had thought the man it belonged to had been the same. But she had been so obviously proved wrong by his toes. She had thought he was grounded, but when she saw his toes floating there above the hardwood floor he had installed himself, it was obvious to anyone how oblivious she must have been. No one so grounded could swing so high.
No one so grounded would have tried to fly away.

She runs herself a bath. She has time before work, and she might feel clean again, if she is clean on the outside. She drops her robe and pajamas on the floor and climbs in to the warm water. She realizes suddenly she had forgotten to take her pill, so she dutifully gets back out and takes the pill, dry-swallowing it. And then, without much thought she takes another, and another, and another.

When she gets back in the water, it is so warm and comforting that she thinks she might be able to sleep.