The Outside

I wake up and something's wrong. My legs won't move, I try, they do not budge. I've heard of this, sleep paralysis, a strange, rare place between asleep and awake. I open my mouth, stale morning air, last night's wine, no words. I wait for the hallucinations, they are supposed to come. I wait for the creature to rest on top of me, suffocate what's left of me, as I lie helpless against the pressure.

I see the light stream through my dirty, crooked blinds. The garbage truck outside, I know it's Tuesday, I see the clothes I threw on the ground last night. The details are too fine to be a dream, I know I am awake. I try again to move, even the slightest thing, a toe at the end of my foot. I peer down like a hospital patient after some great wreck, the doctors say he'll never walk again, come on, come on, you can do it, just one toe, just one little toe.

Am I sweating? Am I hot, cold? How can I be sure of anything anymore? Birds chirp and the room begins to shift. Does it? I am awake. Am I asleep? I wait for something to come from the closet, a corner, crawling across the ceiling like a horror film, creaking its neck in unnatural ways, pouncing and devouring me. And it is true that I am stuck and stretched; one part tragedy, one part comedy.

I close my eyes, the one thing I can control. Maybe if I go to sleep in a while this will all be over. I will get up and get dressed and go out into the world, doing a little more than I would have done, conquering what's left for me to conquer. But the sleep doesn't come, the sunlight still streams in and I am here. Footsteps above me, footsteps outside. I want to cry out for help, a subtle but convincing cry, I don't want them to think I'm dying. But maybe I am. Not that it matters.

Footsteps turn to thuds, something I feel deep inside. A shadow by my window, the streaks in my room grow cloudy, the creature is here at last. If I will not go outside the outside will find me, and it has, and it is tall, and big, and black, and is standing in my corner. I try to move, I try to sleep, it's too absurd. I close my eyes, a human ostrich, hiding in my own head. But I can hear it coming toward me, everything I've ever known, everything I've yet to do, everything I've never done, walking slowly across my floor. It joins me on the bed, deep impressions in the sheets. My eyes tighten, my body, everything tightens, if only I could ease and loosen and let it out, if only I could make one sound, move one toe. But here I am, waiting, stuck somewhere in the middle. I'd laugh, maybe, a little, if I could. If I had a little more time.