The room is dark but for the lamplight swinging overhead. There is no draft, so maybe it’s my eyes, swinging, swaying. But I’m sitting, so maybe it’s my mind, leaving, straying?
(So you can’t sleep?)
My eyes sting. My hands shake. The grains of the desk, stained red, flow like rivers, branching towards me, seeking escape. They are veins, spilling towards me, trying not to bleed. Across, a neck is sat inside a white collar, sat above a nametag, but there is no face. I see a bright light stained where features should be. I watch as hands appear and scribble before me. The nails are dull, clipped and cleaned, clinically. I think that’s what they’ll do to me.
The tearing of paper echoes through my head like muscle peeled from bone. A hand reaches towards me under shadows, changing shape as the ceiling sways and swings, swings and sways. What are they offering? Paper. I know it is meant to cut my skin. Our hands touch. They are cold. Why can’t I see their eyes? Why can’t I see their claws? I know that they’re there.
I look down at the script in my hand but the words shake and the ink doesn’t stay. The Z, the O, the P- run downwards as the scenery around me fractures: two pens become four, four certificates eight. Two hands become more. But still no eyes. Only teeth, and they part:
(So you can’t sleep?)
No, I can’t sleep. Have I said this before? Or was that in my head? Did they hear this before?
(So you can’t sleep?
So you can’t sleep?
So you can’t sleep?)
The voices are booming. They fill up my ears. They fill up my head. My chair is confining and digs into my bones. I have seen their teeth. I can see their claws, no longer clipped, no longer clean. I can see the blood that they missed. It is on their nametags; it is on their hands. It is in their pens. It is the ink on my paper. It is the ink I saw run I saw run I saw RUN. I cannot stay long enough to see their eyes.
(So you can’t sleep? We’ve got something for that.)
Take one everyday and be sure to come back.
frommadness 