Night terrors
After all the stages of twilight, after every beautiful or uninspiring sunset, there is a deep basin of dark. Sitting alone in the depth of dark’s gully (or gullet, if you’re inclined to think that way, and I certainly am), I grasp for feelings of peace or awe or even quiet. I feel only deep, uneasy fear.
Even with a partner at my side, I cannot step outside in pure night, night that has no blue left in it, for more than a moment. Instead, I’m sitting in a benign rocking chair, the kind that always haunts a camp, with its over-lacquered wood and comfortable, quilted seat. But my own rocking is becoming eerie and I can’t decide whether it’s worse to have a slow, rhythmic creak, creak, creak, or a sneakily building creak, creaaak, creak, creaaak.
And now a loon is calling across the lake, or maybe a pair are calling to each other: “Where are you?” “I’m here.” But I hear, “Where are you, where are you, where are you, where have you gone, something is wrong here, something is terribly wrong here, and of course I don’t know that I’m only a bird, and yet still something is terribly wrong here, and if I can’t help not knowing it, I might as well warn Phoebe.”
When I have to fill out the mental health questionnaires at the doctor and it asks if I am “often afraid as if something awful might happen,” I wish there was a notch on the scale to denote “no, hardly ever, only after dark.” Perhaps I am just too well-evolved. I have all the attributes that might have kept me alive in the prehistoric wilderness, except patience and a good outlook on things.
Also, I would be an excellent horror writer if only I could stay continent long enough.
I was deeply afraid of the dark when I was a kid. I would grow sick at bedtime with worry of the night ahead. I would lie awake in fear to move or breathe or speak, building my courage to cry out quick and loud for my mother so she could reach me before evil did. And she always did, at least on the nights I could make my voice work.
I slept more nights than not in a cot in my parent’s small bedroom. This continued till I was embarrassingly old, 12 perhaps. (I was in pull-ups at night for an embarrassingly long time too, for the same reason. I had one other peer who also wore them, and she told everyone at lunch one day that we both wore them, easy as apple pie, while my cheeks burned red. Shame I learned young.)
I saw a therapist, Mary, at this time. A lovely, straightforward woman. I was greatly distressed by my behavior and told her so. She told me not to worry. “You won’t be twenty and sleeping in your parent’s bed,” she said.
“I might be,” I replied. Everything always felt so critical, even then. Every action life or death.
Mary was right. I mellowed considerably. But still, at night, I feel death lurk. Or maybe just fear; it’s hard to say which is scarier. I have outgrown some superstitions and built new ones. You know, grown-up ones.
At night in the dark with a partner, new or old, when they are asleep and thus could be anyone or anything, I am struck by the urgent realization that they have been replaced by a demon of some sort. Being a logical sort myself, I have developed a series of steps anyone can take to test this hypothesis should you also feel the need.
First, whisper their name softly. Often, they will respond, for you will have so kindly caught them just on the precipice of sleep. If they do, softly touch their face, reading it with your fingertips. If they don’t, ditto.
If they do respond, and it’s not their voice, well, scream, I suppose.
If they respond in their own voice and you’re still not convinced, shine quite a bright light in their face and hope you’re cute enough to get away with it. Thank goodness I am.
