Nocturnal Wars

Transcript of Last Night's Events:

12:30 a.m.
Bedtime.


1: 00 a.m.
Simon: "Ahem."  (Makes other obsequious, polite noises)
Me: (Deep breathing, pretending to be deeply asleep.)
Simon: (Clear throat). "It's just, I just..."
Me: "What?!"
Simon: "It's just...You keep moving.  I...I can't go to sleep."

     I try to hold still, but the minute Simon finishes speaking, I get an urgent desire to roll over.  I make myself hold completely still on my left side. I breathe very carefully.  I have discipline, and I can do this.
     My feet are suddenly hot.  Burning. I need to take off my socks.  To distract myself, I clench my abs to see if they've firmed up since I've given birth nearly two years ago (they haven't). I clench and unclench my calves to the rhythm of, "Just a Spoonful of Sugar." I feel like Simon has bat hearing.  I'm stuck inside submarine U-571, and I daren't stir lest the enemy hears me with his sonar.
     Perversely, this makes me want to punch the air and do "bicycles" on the sheets.  
     My feet are in hell and Satan is holding hot pokers to them.

1:34 a.m.

Me: (Gently, ever-so-carefully, using my toes, I take off my socks. The sound is faint, like crickets playing dodgeball. Then I ease over onto my back.  The sheets rustle softly, like a Caribbean breeze.)
Simon: (Exhales loudly through his mouth, producing a short, windy sound of exasperation)
Me: (Exhale loudly through my nose, producing a slightly more hissy, and therefore more authoritative, sound of exasperation.)

     Now I'm on my back.  I can hold still here forever.  No problem.
     I bet people's spines look like caterpillars when seen with an X-ray.  I think I can kind of feel my nerves coming out of my vertebra.  Nerviness is the worst.  I have that nervy, twitchy feeling.  It makes me think of when I dissected a frog back in college, and after we de-capitated them we had to stick a wire down their spinal column and wiggle it around to scramble their nerves.  So their legs would stop twitching.
     Wait! I think my leg is going numb!
     I bet I have a lot of fascia in my back. I wonder if "fascia" and "fascist" come from the same word.
     Hey, my traps are starting to twitch.
     I can feel my ganglia! I can feel my ganglia for crying out loud!!

1:36 a.m.

Me: (Roll over with quick, deft movement.)
Simon: "It's just...I have a big presentation tomorrow.  I want to be sharp for it.
Me: "I feel like a prisoner in my own bed!"
Simon: "I feel like a prisoner in my own bed." (Gets up, goes downstairs to the guest bedroom)

3:30 a.m.

     I wake up in a puddle of sweat.  I sluice the water out of my eyebrows with my index finger and thumb and try to figure out why I've awoken.  Ah, yes.  A lamb is bleating outside the window.  No.  It's Wilbur the dog, he's letting out a long string of high-pitched, windy farts in his sleep.  Yes, that's true, but there's something else... Yes, there it is.  Clara has awoken.

     What time is it?  

     3:30.

     So I've been asleep for an hour and a half.

     I'm going to let her yell for awhile and see if she goes back to sleep.  

     But why am I so sweaty?  When do women hit menopause? Forty? Fifty? Ninety? I love that magazine called More for middle-aged and mature women...I bet Diane Keaton has been on the cover...Wait! Don't go back to sleep!! You won't rest well in a wet bed.

     Why am I so sweaty?

     Maybe it isn't sweat!!!!

     When do people usually get incontinent?  Forty?  Fifty?  Ninety??

     Nonsense.  It can't be that.  How did it get in my eyebrows?

     Ah.  It's becoming clearer now.  Of course.  It's the comforter Simon's parents gave us a few years back.  The goose down one rated for fifty below zero.  It seemed so light and airy when I put it over me several hours ago.