On the first night that Mary didn’t sleep, she just couldn’t figure out why because she was so very happy. Nothing could be keeping her awake– it was maddening. Of course she’d had some restless nights in the past, tossing and turning over a bad grade or a particularly awkward kiss, but at present, not a milligram was weighing on her conscience. She tended to think like this sometimes, weighing her grievances in a physical manner that Eva instructed against, since it gave a body to her worries which therefore gave them power. She spent the whole of the night meticulously curling her hair with a 0.25 inch rod and watching My Strange Addiction.
On the second night, Mary drank a steaming cup of sleepy time tea, took three strawberry melatonin gummies, and flipped her body so that her head lay at the bottom of the bed and her feet at the top. She wore a sleep mask to block out the sun and in the morning, light peaked through her curtains, sliding over her body which was still very much awake. She’d even changed into jeans some time around 5 AM because she’d read that this fools your mind into thinking you’re not actually trying to sleep– a sort of reverse psychology. When her alarm went off, Mary pushed herself out of bed and wore the jeans to work.
On the third night, she was intent on not letting her sleeplessness trump her good mood, and so she went alone to a club in Brooklyn called The Cat’s Pajama’s and danced until 4 AM. She spent the early hours of the morning drinking sour coffee at a dingy diner, surrounded by men in suits stopping in for a slice of pie before work. Mary didn’t know things like that still happened. It reminded her of a picture book.
On the fourth night, she called in the big guns. She rang her therapist sometime around 9 PM from a lounge chair in her living room. Mary had been seeing Eva for over a decade, having first been diagnosed with emetophobia at the age of 11 and sent to exposure therapy. Through videos, photographs, and roleplay, Mary overcame her fear of vomit, and out of appreciation, her mother, always the hostess, began inviting Eva to family gatherings, graduation parties, birthdays and the like, until she was somewhat of a family friend. This benefited Mary in that she could often call Eva at odd hours.
“It really must be something,” Eva’s voice was muffled through the phone. Mary imagined that she was holding it against her shoulder, her hands occupied with her laundry or perhaps cleaning up behind her one-year-old. “When we can’t sleep, something is trying to push through to the conscious,” Eva said. “What’s making you anxious? What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing,” said Mary. “My life is great.” In fact, she’d been thinking of stopping therapy altogether because they often resorted to baseline subjects: her father’s aversion to physical touch, her first boyfriend who’d dumped her after the painful experience of losing her virginity, her mother. But none of this really mattered to Mary. She was living in her own apartment, working for a small arts and culture magazine out of Brooklyn. She had plenty of friends from both high school and college, and she was also seeing someone, a man named Joe. Every box was checked, and when Mary went through the list in her head, check check check, her heart swelled and she let out a little yelp of pleasure.
And she loved the city, she really loved it. She loved walking around with no purse or jacket. She loved eating street knishes and the absolute gall of the pigeons and the 24 hour deli where she ordered a plastic carton of pickled banana peppers every afternoon. She loved scanning the posters hanging from coffee shop bulletin boards and showing up at the listed addresses for free sample lessons: piano, embroidery, Italian, even ping pong.
“Well let’s talk about something else,” Eva said. “Get your mind off of sleep for a second. Tell me about this boyfriend you mentioned last week.”
“Joe. We met at the Whole Foods salad bar. He’s nine years older than me, and he’s an indoor rock climbing instructor.”
“And how long have you been a couple?”
“About a month,” said Mary.
“Well that’s great. And has he been helping you at all with these sleeping issues?”
“Not really. I honestly don’t think he believes me.”
“Interesting. Does that bother you?”
“A little, I guess. I’m not a liar.” There was a pause and then the sound of static on the other end of the line.
“Have you been exercising enough Mary? You know, I find that some night time yoga really gets my circadian rhythm back on track.”
“Sure, maybe I’ll try that. Thanks. I have to go.” Mary hung up the phone. She found a book of crossword puzzles in her bedside drawer, and before she knew it, morning had come.
It was true that the man, Joe, didn’t believe in her nighttime misfortune.
“When I woke up the other night, you were definitely asleep. You were so still and silent,” he said to her on the fifth night. They sat at a small Indian restaurant with orange lighting and wooden benches.
“Wrong,” Mary said. “You see, I’m just trying to trick my body into thinking I’m asleep, but I’m really awake, or at least in some sort of middle space. If you had said something to me, I would’ve responded immediately.” And Joe did talk to her during the night sometimes, but only because he was a clinical sleep talker. But he must go. Down to the market square. Three sugar cubes at the least. Last one there is a rotten egg! he mumbled. Mary didn’t mind the talking. Sometimes she even tried to piece his sentences together to form a coherent story. In the morning, she would ask if he remembered the dream, but he never did.
Later that night, the fifth night, Mary started to worry. Five is a big number. Five fingers, five toes, five boroughs, five vowels, five senses. She sat propped against her headboard, journaling in a hard cover notebook. Mary tried to journal every night because she was terrified of forgetting. She also loved to hold the book in her arms, knowing it was filled with all the things she’d done. The journal was especially important now, since her days were beginning to muddle with no intelligible markings. The sleepless nights awarded Mary quite literally all the time in the world, 24 hours followed by 24 hours, followed by yet another 24 hours. If there was one thing she hated, it was wasted time, and yet her happiness was floundering. It was less the physical exhaustion than the horrible realization that time was beginning to feel entirely empty. Now, Mary split the pages of her journal down the middle, leaving one half to write about her days and the other half her nights. Her phone rang out, and she put down her pencil and slid her head down to her pillow. It was her mother, and to Mary’s great annoyance, she really didn’t seem to care about her lack of sleep at all.
“I haven’t had a wink of sleep for almost 108 hours. Do you know what that does to a person?” Mary demanded.
“Honey, your body will sleep when it needs to.”
“That is exactly the issue though. It’s not doing its job. I am wide awake. Hello!”
“You know, there was one time when you were in kindergarten, it was the day before your birthday, and you stayed up all night long. Your father and I didn’t know what to do!
There was a tradition at school where the other children would make a paper chain of compliments for the birthday girl, and you were just so excited that—”
“You’re not being very helpful to be frank. I think this is a very serious issue. I should probably go to the hospital. I’m starting to forget very basic things. Like today, I pet my coworker's head. He’s bald, which makes it more acceptable, but do you see what I mean? I’m going insane!”
“Mary, I don't know what you want me to say. I’m sure the reason you're not sleeping is because you’re making a whole dramatic halhullabaloo about not being able to sleep. When you get into bed tonight, try and believe you’re going to get some shut eye.”
“That is the worst advice I’ve ever heard. Goodbye mother. The least you could do is pay my hospital bill once I check myself in.” Mary hung up the phone. She looked to her left, to Joe breathing heavily, still asleep. Mary knew he had lesbian mothers. She knew he wore shirts stamped with random phrases like “Ready Spaghetti!” not because he thought they were funny but because he thought they were cute. He was born somewhere in Connecticut. He didn’t like sushi because the rice was too sour. And he clearly could sleep through just about anything. Reaching into her nightstand, she pulled out two trazodone pills that a friend had given from a metal mint container. She dry-swallowed both pills and promptly entered a state of near paralysis. Piss off, farm boy! Joe yelped beside her.