Nighttime is well on its way, and there is a dull ache in my belly.
Tears still flow, but they will evaporate, leaving salt-streaked pathways on my cheeks that will still be there in the morning.
The walls close in, the darkness encroaches, and the world feels about as cheerful as a lump of charcoal.
Around me, the world goes on: Kai curled up asleep next to me on the futon that serves as my “bed”; one daughter already asleep; the other buried deep in her Instagram stories with her characteristic “Zen”; and the boy worrying about boy-related things (the band, guitar strings, practice).
I wonder if I’m “doing it right”.
I’m terrified of the thing— the jet-black terror that dared emerge last night after nearly a year of peace to freeze my limbs and surround me with that cold, familiar dread in which I cannot move or make a sound, but can only lie there in the presence of evil.
“Sleep paralysis”, they call it.
My eyes flew open and I made a feeble mumble for help; luckily, my little one hadn’t gone to sleep yet and was able to come to my aid.
The darkness fled— for now— because it had to.
What if I had been alone? What if my daughter hadn’t been awake? Lying in a paralyzed state with dark astral beings might only last for a few moments, but in the terrified and frigid mind of the affected, each second has the same length of a thousand years, and each second is intolerable. It is to lie in a state of complete vulnerability and be unable to do anything about it.
Waking up this morning was a relief!
Then I really thought about it: did I honestly wake up, or am I still asleep? What is “wake” and what is “sleep”? If I truly think I’ve experienced terror, then what about the most vicious of deeds that are so common-place behind closed doors? If I must awaken to a world in which soulless walking flesh-dolls weave through the streets among us, a world in which the thoroughly vile and most beastly of ‘humans’ can attack us in the streets, at home, in schools— from the air, from the ground, through the water and through the food we eat, all wrapped in a convincing smile that most cannot see past, do I really want to be “awake”?
Why the hell did I come?
Why am I still breathing?
Why am I still moving?
Was 467 times somehow not enough learning, so I needed to make it 468? I can’t even do math (or did Wiokish already know that)?
I know the answers already.
We are protected, and we volunteered. The Soul is always safe.
But there are times when life is going to seem like a miserable hell-hole even with perspective; times when you wish you could take it all back; times where you wish you could press an emergency button somewhere and have helpful attendants rush to wake up the sacred body in the light chamber.
That isn’t going to happen, which is the one thing we can count on:
We aren’t here to save you. You must do it yourself.
Half an hour later, and the tears are gone.
Were they ever really there, or were they illusions composed of salt?
