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by Michelle Shin My brother’s wife’s father died. My first thought is if the funeral will upset our weekend plans. I ask my husband if this makes me a monster or just a modern human. He says, “Look to the horizon. There you will always find light.” I tell him to turn his desk lamp off. He’s been hunched there so long he sees residual light even if he closes his eyes. He’s been working on a theory about Monarchs and how they get too much attention at the expense of everything else. He often laments that it is never dark anymore. Not the kind of dark that can stir up proper nightmares. I tell him we have cable news for that. At night, I can’t sleep. Energy courses through my body. Not my head. My head is tired. But my body is alive. It wants to run marathons or go dancing. Maybe hike the PCT. During the day my body is sluggish and purposeless, much like jello wobbling on a plate. I spend much of the night trying to convince night body to emulate day body, but to no avail. Due to this, I am never quite present during the day. You know that feeling when you are energized and alert and you can take on the world? I don’t. At best, on any given day, 83% of me is visible and present. I watch my colleagues talk while I think about heat. I watch my son play while I think about abysses. I watch my friends laugh while I think about division. I can’t laugh anymore because I overthink it. When the world has become hysterical does that mean everything, or nothing, is funny? My husband has taken to sleeping with a pillow over his head to block out the light. He looks headless. Just stuffed sheets and a pillow head. I tell him in the morning that him being headless might be an improvement. He says that if I actually existed my words might hurt. But he says I belong to the dark and that dark simply doesn’t exist anymore. So maybe that’s why my body becomes alive at night. It only exists at night when he is sleeping. He is missing me at my most vivacious. This is when I could move mountains. Except for my tired, tired head that simply wants to sleep. Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.
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