In the Middle of the Night

      I heard the front door handle creak its way open to let the sticky old door release to let him fumble past the gap. His body weight, heavy on the door, pushed it back into a secure position. I can’t see him but I can hear his uneven breath struggle to escape his lungs. I know he’s still leaned there against the front door, trying to gain his bearings to fully enter the house. He’s, no doubt, slightly spinning after peddling uphill on the two mile bike ride home. This wouldn’t be that big of a deal except its 2:30 in the morning and he’s had far too much whiskey downtown. He’ll be trying to gather a normal semblance of a persona to take on now that he’s left the loud, laughing, swirling freedom of the barstool next to his friends.

     The fresh smell of bleached sheets and the cinnamon-apple spray I spritzed on the bedspread earlier lingers in my nose. I found the small silver canister of the spray in my bedside table earlier today after I’d put the freshly washed linens on the bed. It’s the beginning of summer so the scent is slightly out of place but I’d picked it up really cheap since it’s a Christmas aroma. Who decided that apples and cinnamon are for winter and things like peaches and ocean scent are for summer? I’m not sure which odor would relax me now anyway.

    His size 13 basketball shoes hit the linoleum on the entry way and his shoulder nicks the key holder that hangs on the wall. I can hear him mumble something derogatory toward the inanimate oversized key with its row of hooks to hold the other smaller, real keys. I sit up slightly so I can strain my ears to hear every little movement he makes downstairs. My heart beats a hundred miles an hour in anticipation of what will happen next. It might be nothing. His feet fall like work boots thick with oppressive mud, into the kitchen.

     Rolling over, I try to settle my head into the cool pillow resting next to the one my head lies on. It’s no use, though; I readjust with my neck craned at the door. The rubber edging that circles the door of the fridge peels open in a sticky release and allows the door to let go of some of its precious cold air. In my mind I can see him grabbing random handfuls of grapes left in a bowl on the middle shelf, trying to focus on what can be consumed with the least amount of preparation. The squeak of a Styrofoam to-go box and I know the microwave will soon be beeping, full of a heaping plate of leftover biscuits and gravy from today’s breakfast. He rattles the plates in the cupboard way too loud and that always annoys me.

         This is a boring ordeal to wait for so I let myself fall into the crisp clean scent of our bedding and gently dose off. It seems as if I immediately begin to dream; I’m cramming a fat Rainbow trout into the drain of a toothpaste-green sink. It’s one of those sinks that are from the 50’s, when you had a choice of that weird baby pink, powder-blue or the green. The fish is about the size of one that you could slip into a frying pan and cook up and it has three smaller fish with it. The bathroom in my dream is the sort that has midnight blue shag carpeting that had soaked up I don’t know how many years of toilet over flows, dripping bodies from the shower, and hairspray residue. The sea-foam green bathroom rug set does nothing to mask the mildew odor. It has that familiar smell of a bathroom that just needs the whole dang floor torn out and replaced.

         I stop trying to force the fish down the drain and take a seat on the toilet. As I’m sitting on the toilet, I face the sink and there’s now a fat little baby with his legs wrapped around the main large fish. I can feel this is very disturbing to me in my dream and my mind searches for a reason why the baby would be in the sink with the fish. Quickly as that- I’m in a bar, in the same foreign small town where the house with the stinky bathroom is located. This town, where ever it is, is rural and warm, almost humid. The vegetation is lush with numerous varieties of ferns and mosses all in the slightest variation of green hues. Perhaps the mugginess accounts for the state of the bathroom.

      Apparently, I am hopelessly in love with the local tough-guy. I can feel the yearning and lust for this man deep in the pit of my sleeping stomach. Though I never see this man, I try hard to gain his attention and soon I’m drunk in my dream. The bar is completely made of dark wood with large wooden furniture made out of logs. I sit at one of the tables that stand about four and a half feet high. The beer I drink is in a mason jar with a handle. Somewhere behind me country music seeps from a juke box that plays 45’s.

    The desperation to impress this unknown man of my affection comes to a head as someone in the bar tells me he’s on his way to the bar. With that tid-bit of information, I take a nibble off the rim of my jar of beer. I slowly start to chew up the glass, I know it’s risky, but I have a strange feeling that if I do it just right there shouldn’t be too much blood and I will be able to swallow the glass. Instinctually, I know the guy is just outside and I take an even larger bite and as I chew the glass I can feel it making tiny cuts on the inside of my lips and around my teeth on my gums. I try to hold back the blood but it begins to leak from between my lips in a tiny stream.

     Then I wake up. My head lifts suddenly from the white pillow case and I’m disturbed by the image of myself in the dreaming world. My lips still have a slight stinging and I run my tongue across them to sooth the odd feeling away. I flash on the fish and the baby. Rolling over, he walks in the bedroom and I look at the digital clock that reads 2:58.

     “How was it,” I ask. “Did you have any fun?” I always ask the same questions when he gets home after he’s gone out.

     “No, not really.” His speech is slurred and has a tinge of annoyance behind the answer.

     He falls onto the right side of the bed, the side where he sleeps. He smells like fermenting beer and a hint of whiskey mingling with the sausage gravy. His jeans don’t come off because he used the last bit of energy he had to eat and drag his 6’ 4” frame up the stairs. I want to ask him if anything funny or strange happened. I want to know who he talked to and if he saw anyone he hadn’t seen in a long time. I want to ask where he and his co-workers drank and if they played pool. Instead, I decide to let him pass out and I roll over and pull the light bedspread up around my shoulder. The pillows feel so soft and comfortable and I imagine them as little clouds surrounding my head, lifting me slowly up off the bed and into a deep sleep.