by Dan Hawley
“At the clinic, just waiting for them to come hook up the machine. How are you?”
Jason opened the news app and scrolled before receiving the reply: “Oh ok. Just had a bath, in bed relaxing.” And a heart emoji.
Jason longed to be there too, with her, in their bed, their body heat mingling under the covers.
I gotta do this though, he thought. Hopefully, it works, hopefully…
His door opened, and a nurse walked in, pushing a cart. The cart was a chrome cornucopia of technology. Red and green lights blinked sporadically on computer panels and instruments, and black wires traveled up and down and in and out. On top sat the probes, eager to get to work.
“Hi-tech!” Jason called as he walked towards the bed.
“Good evening Mr. Steele. May I ask that you put your mask on while I set you up here? You may remove it when I’m gone.”
“Whoops, sorry about that.” Jason grabbed his surgical mask from the side table and slipped the straps around his ears.
“Still not completely used to that yet.”
“Not a problem at all,” the nurse said.
Her green eyes sparkled above her own mask as she spoke. Jason’s eyes locked with hers until she broke the connection by looking down at her cart. She continued in and around the side of the bed. Jason moved slowly out of her way, unable to stop his eyes from taking in the way her red scrubs hugged all the right places of her body perfectly. Each plump cheek rose and fell as she walked, half bent over the cart she was pushing.
Jason forced his eyes away partly because it was rude to stare, partly because he knew the cameras were watching.
* * *
Samantha lay in bed, thumbing through her phone. News, weather, social media. She sighed with boredom and looked over at the empty side of the bed. Jason’s side was cold and dark, and loneliness poked at her heart. She thought about how long it had been since she slept alone. When she first started dating Jason, she supposed. What was it like then? What would life be like now if she had never met Jason? She wouldn’t be all the way out in Seattle, that’s for sure. Away from everything and everyone she knew.
She would talk to Jason about moving back home, she thought, finally allowing herself to admit she was truly unhappy. She was sure he would, at least eventually; he wasn’t happy either. COVID had thrown a wrench in the plan, but even without the global pandemic, Sam knew she would not have been happy out here.
Moving during a pandemic would probably be difficult, she thought, and likely dangerous. They could catch the virus at the gas pumps, at restaurants, at hotels. The thought of that saddened her. How we took life before for granted, she thought as she rolled over onto her other side, plugged in her phone, and set it on the table.
She clicked off the lamp and rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. With a deep breath, she pulled the blanket up to her chin and allowed her eyes to close.
* * *
“How does that feel?” the nurse asked as she stepped back from affixing the last probe to Jason’s face. She turned to the machine she had wheeled in earlier and began clicking buttons and toggling switches.
“Not too bad,” Jason replied. “Although I feel a bit like some kids’ science experiment.”
Jason chuckled. His nerves were showing more than he would have liked, but the nurse didn’t seem to notice or care. There were eight probes taped to his face. Eight wires sprouted from under each piece of medical tape, then hooked into a small black box fastened to his chest.
The box blinked with two small lights, and Jason found himself smiling.
“I look a bit like Vader, don’t you think?”
His nerves calmed as he pictured himself strong with the force.
The nurse turned and bent over him again; her breasts strained against her clothing as she adjusted a probe that wasn’t picking up signal.
Jason could see nothing else but her chest, a few inches from his face. He tried not to look and even considered closing his eyes, but he was only a man after all. His shorts grew under the thin blanket as the perky breasts floated in front of his face, teasing him.
She’s doing this on purpose! he thought. She didn’t need to be right in my face with those; she could stand off to the side. What does she think? I’m just gonna grab her and pull her onto the bed, on to me? Tear her tight shirt and constricting bra off to get a good look at those puppies?
His groin grew again at the thought.
Like what? She’s just gonna jump on top of me and start riding me in front of these cameras? Put on a show for the perverts?
His member stood at full attention now, ready for action, warm with blood.
What a slut!
His thoughts were interrupted when the nurse finished attaching the new probe and leaned back to look at it. Jason quickly and discreetly tucked his hardon under the waistband of his shorts to hide it. The nurse leaned back and pushed a button on the black chest monitor. She seemed satisfied as the machine beeped and the lights turned from red to green.
“There we are,” she said as she tinkered with the machine on the cart. “Now, just relax and let the monitor do its thing. If you need anything, please press the button on the remote attached to your bed, and someone will be in to help. You can sleep however you normally sleep, the probes shouldn’t come off, and if you need to go to the bathroom, that is fine as well. Again, we ask that you stay in your room until the test is concluded in the morning.”
She waited for a moment, her glassy eyes piercing his as if searching for what lay behind them.
“Oh…ok, thank you,” Jason stammered.
He suddenly felt very guilty about his thoughts. Could the machine pick up what he was thinking about? Wouldn’t that be embarrassing? Imagine if people could read each other’s thoughts…then we’d know just how sick everyone really is!
“Any questions?” she asked, eyes still piercing.
“No, I think I’m good here, thanks again.”
The nurse bowed her head slightly and then left, closing the door behind her with a click. Jason stared after her. His eyes moved to the black box on his chest, then to the camera.
It was watching. Constantly. Judging him.
Jason looked away quickly. He grabbed his phone, texted Sam goodnight, and turned off the lights—quite tired and ready for sleep.
* * *
Samantha’s eyes flew open, but no other part of her body would move. Her eyes rolled around in her unmoving head feverishly. Pure terror grasped her and held her still. She fought against the fear; she fought against the invisible hands holding her down. She tried to scream or yell for help, but all that escaped her lips was soundless air. A single, shiny tear fell from her eye and streaked her cheek with salt. It was as if all the breath inside her had been taken and not allowed back in.
She had fallen off the jungle gym again; the wind knocked completely out of her. She gasped and struggled like a drowning goldfish. Her lips puckered and pursed in a futile effort to draw breath. Her skin turned purple, and veins popped against the strain.
Find your breath, Sam, find your breath. It’s a night terror; you’ve had this before. You’re ok. You’re ok.
Suddenly the invisible hands let go, receding into the night. Her lungs again accepted air as she sucked it in greedily. She sat up and clutched her chest, her breathing heavy and labored. She continued to sit until she calmed down once again. Her heart rate eventually slowed and normalized. Saliva came back to moisten her dry mouth. The few beads of sweat on her forehead dried in the night air. Her breathing relaxed and became natural again, but instead of silence in the gaps between inhale and exhale, she heard only the hum. Samantha sat still for a moment, listening. She hated that sound. She hated hearing it, and she hated what it was doing to Jason.
“Fuck you, hum,” she said quietly as she lay back and turned on her Bluetooth speaker.
CHAPTER 21
“I think he likes you.”
“Of course he does,” the nurse
replied. “Who?”
“The guy in 2D. Let’s just say he was at full attention when you were strapping him in.”
“Don’t be vile, Jerry.”
Jerry spun around in his chair and began clicking away on his keyboard. In front of him were eight large monitors showing video feeds of rooms inside the sleep clinic.
“I’m not even kidding Amanda; this guy likes you!” Jerry hooted with the maturity of a schoolyard bully. “Here, let me back up the recording so you can see for yourself.”
He clicked a button and spun a dial, and the bottom left monitor’s video began moving backward.
“Whatever, I don’t care,” Amanda said as she walked over to her station. Her desk was a copy of Jerry’s. Eight monitors lit up her face as she sat down. She looked at each screen, carefully studying their feeds to make sure everything, and everyone, was in order. Satisfied, she began working on her end-of-shift notes. Nothing out of the ordinary tonight, she thought, just the usual tired-looking people desperately searching for help.
The men were the easiest to handle. Sure, sometimes they leered uncomfortably long and talked to her like she was a dumb blonde, but she would just give them a cute look and flavor her words with sugar, and they would be easily malleable. Malleable. That’s a word she knew because she was decidedly not a dumb blonde. She was working on her masters, and soon she would have her Ph.D.
Beauty and brains, a lethal combo, as Jerry would say. But the men were the easiest—even the old, lecherous ones. None had been so bold as to fully grab her, but sometimes she would get a waft of gold bond and mothballs as a frail, boney hand ‘accidentally’ brushed her breasts on its way to adjust a shirt or glasses.
The first time it happened, Amanda had recoiled in surprise and disgust, but the feeble old man looking up at her from the bed had a playful smile and glint in his eyes that made her relax. It wasn’t like one of the frat boys at her college; this was an old man. Death wasn’t far off, and he just wanted to feel the warm skin and firm fat of a young woman’s chest. Hard to blame him, really.
The women were more difficult. Usually, they were ok, more self-absorbed in whatever was troubling their sleep, but Amanda noticed the looks. The look from these tired, usually middle-aged housewives was a mix between jealousy and hate. Maybe not hate. Amanda didn’t feel hate from these women as much as resentment. As if it was beautiful, young, thin, pretty Amanda’s fault that their husbands would rather jerk off on the internet than fuck their aging wives.
It wasn’t conceit; people had been telling her that she was beautiful her whole life. As a child, she was told she was “going to be a heartbreaker,” and as a teen, they said to her father, “I bet you have to beat the boys off with a stick.”
Now, as a young adult, the boys she wanted to talk to her were too shy, and the boys who did only seemed to want one thing.
Still, Amanda didn’t blame these ladies for the way they looked her up and down when she entered the room with the sleep device—she pitied them and swore she would never end up that way.
The children who came to the clinic were her favorites, but they were often the most difficult for her emotionally. Amanda had little sympathy for the adults. She cared; she really did want them to feel better, but she could turn off any emotion or attachment to the outcome. After a few years in this field, she had realized that most of the issues, the things causing sleep problems with people, seemed to be of their own making. The specter of their own guilt and pain and regret disturbing their sleep like a menacing ghost that could be simply banished if they would just let go of those feelings. Often, all the patients needed were some tests and a good talk or two with Dr. Luu—more psychologist than somnologist. They learned stress management and relaxation techniques. They discovered the correlation between the health of the body and the health of the mind. It was amazing what a little exercise and a proper diet could do to improve the quality of your sleep.
Sometimes this worked for the children as well. They might just need some exercise and to augment their diet. Sometimes they could be taught relaxation techniques as well and how to deal with negative self-talk.
But if the ghosts that haunted them weren’t of their own making, then what could be done?
Amanda loved walking in and finding a child in the room that she could make smile and laugh. A child with an open heart, fully accepting of love, laughter, and joy. But when she opened the door and walked into a room occupied by a truly sad and depressed child, a child that would not laugh and would force themself to crack the faintest of smiles at a joke, it almost made her want to quit. To get into a field that won’t put that sadness on her. Selfish, Amanda thought, and impossible.
She could never drag herself away. She loved the success stories too much. She loved seeing that same depressed child a month later, looking well rested and alive. That is why she did this work: to help people. And to crack those incredibly fascinating and strange cases.
Cases like the boy in 2B.
Amanda’s eyes floated from the screen where she had just finished her nightly report to the monitor showing the boy in 2B. There he lay with the covers pulled tight up to his chest. His blue and white pinstriped pajamas covered his shoulders. His shaggy brown hair stood out like winter wheat against the white pillowcase. He lay completely still, quietly and unblinkingly staring at the camera lens and right back into Amanda’s eyes.
CHAPTER 22
“Good morning Mr. Steele!” said a bright voice from a crack in the door after a quick knock. “Are you decent?”
“I’m sure you know I’m decent; you’ve been watching me all night.”
Jerry opened the door and gave a little wave. He walked over to the bed and began removing the probes from Jason’s head.
“Well, now, I wasn’t watching you all night Mr. Steele…”
“Jason.”
“Oh, ok, Jason. We always have one person on in case of emergency. Mostly I watched YouTube videos and napped.” Jerry winked.
Below his eyes, Jerry’s mask was black with white sheep jumping over little brown fences.
“The name’s Jerry.”
His voice was almost shrill; that pitch one hits when they are forcing cheerfulness. It put Jason off. Or maybe Jason was just disappointed that Jerry was Jerry instead of the nurse from the night before. Instead of Jerry’s fake enthusiasm and stupid mask, Jason would have much preferred to have her perfect, perky breasts in his face. Jason’s groin began to swell again at the thought of her. Realizing this, he caught the thought and stopped it cold.
They weren’t that great, Jesus man, get it together.
Jason shook his head slightly.
“So you didn’t see if I was talkin’ or moving around last night?” he asked.
“Huh-uh, no sir. I have an alarm set to check on the monitors every hour.” His eyes fell away from Jason’s. “Every time I looked, you were just lying there.”
Jerry set a probe down on the machine and reached for another.
“So you just had quick little naps then.”
Jason studied Jerry for any signs that he might be hiding something that he saw. Like when you go to get x-rays and ask the technician if everything looks ok and they reply that they aren’t allowed to say. Was that pity in their eyes? Did they see something? Is it the big C?
After removing the last probe and the black box from Jason’s chest, Jerry looked back at Jason.
“Yes sir, just quick little catnaps.”
Jason nodded, convinced that Jerry had spent most of the night not watching the monitors closely at all. Something in Jerry’s eyes told Jason that Jerry’s ‘quick little catnaps’ were probably more like he slept the whole damn night through, and that was why he was so fresh and annoying.
Jerry piled all the wires onto the machine with the black Vader box, wheeled it about a foot from the bed, and turned to Jason.
“Dr. Luu will let you know the results at the follow-up appointment you set for Wednesday at four o’clock.
It takes a bit of time to review the data. Do you have any questions for me, Mr. sorry, Jason?” Jason spun his legs over the side of the bed and stretched.
“Nope, I’m good. Thanks, Jerry.”
With that, Jerry turned and wheeled the machine out the door, leaving it open. Jason looked over at the side table. Everything that was supposed to be there was there. Nothing out of place or moved around. Disappointment colored Jason’s face. He was hoping he had moved things around. He hoped that he talked and elbowed and swore. He hoped that he got up and did a damn sleepwalking jig. Only so the doctor could see what the hell was going on in his brain when it happened. Oh well, he thought, sleeping Jerry may have missed something after all. Just going to have to wait and see.
Jason stood up, bent over for another stretch, and then headed into the bathroom to relieve himself. As he passed the mirror, he stopped.
“Man, you’re looking old,” he said to his reflection. The hair at his temples had started greying recently, and now that it had grown out, the grey was very noticeable. The bags under his eyes were like fluid-filled sacks tugging at his lower eyelids. His beard was getting grey at the sides too, and needed a trim.
Jason stared into his reflection’s eyes. They were deep, dark blue, like the color of an angry ocean.
Hair turns grey and skin becomes loose and lined, but the eyes remain unchanged. Jason stared a moment longer into the ocean, attempting to see below the rough surface, into his own soul.
His concentration was broken by voices from the hallway. The person from the room across the hall was leaving. Jerry’s voice sounded shrill.
Jason relieved himself, washed his hands, and then brushed his teeth. He spat and rinsed, then looked briefly into the reflection’s dark eyes, daring them to reveal what lay below the surface.
With a deep breath of resignation, Jason grabbed his toiletries and left the bathroom, turning off the light as he passed.