18
I wake to malevolence. The room is peculiarly sepia. I can only guess that the time is early morning. There’s no rationality now. Panic attacks produce fear, but that’s internalized. This exists everywhere – I am immersed in a terror that is absolute. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t escape. Strangely, when the Aropax was instigating parasomnia episodes, it was driving me out of the bed. Now I’m locked in here. It’s ten years ago. I haven’t had a sleep paralysis episode for over thirty years. Right now, I can’t even reconcile that’s what’s happening. Then a greater truth presents itself. There’s somebody to my right. Somebody cold…
09
I lay in bed, my partner sleeping peacefully besides me. She’s never had any problems getting to sleep. I envy that easiness, that matter-of-factness about her going to bed. She feels no dread. She knows bed means sleep. It’s not something I’ve enjoyed my adult life – but especially now. The tiredness is there. The tiredness is excruciating, weighted in every muscle, heavy in my eyes, and clogged in my head. The tiredness should bully me into sleep. But whatever that last checkpoint is, I never make it. This is sixteen years ago. I’ve ditched Aropax – too abruptly, I learn retrospectively; and following bad medical advice from a psychiatrist…