Poking Holes in the Dark

David said: Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul would soon have settled in silence.

21
At night just before the radiator stops, it makes a sputtering noise that lasts about a minute. I lie in bed anticipating the inevitable: silence. Each night the sounds come and go in cycles. While the radiator runs, it emits a pleasant whir-uniform, comforting, constant, my sole companion in the night. But the final spats and sputters always create in me a sudden loss. When silence comes, I am shocked as if by gunfire. The silence is louder than sound. I feel sick to my stomach. I squirm under the covers and think about turning the radiator back on. I contemplate getting up to flip on the fan.
5
I lie in bed outside my parents' room. My mother keeps their door cracked open, just enough to let a beam of light shine onto my face. I cry when the light goes off or the door shuts. The light reveals the absurdity of my nightmarish fears. I fidget in bed and lift my scrawny legs vertical. I poke my long bony toes through the bottom of my sister's mattress board. She sleeps on the top bunk, and I am jealous until the day she rolls off and knocks her front teeth out. My dad punishes me for what I've done to the mattress board. He explains the meaning of "destructive." I already know what it means. He used the same word when I drew lipstick pictures on our front porch. But I like the feeling of my toes pushing through the felt-like fabric so I don't stop. I poke holes when the lights go out.
19
I am teaching high school English on the island of Babeldaob. I lie in bed wishing the air conditioner would work. At five a.m. I need to get up to grade papers. For the last month the electricity has gone off every morning from one to five because the island is having an energy crisis. So I try to go to sleep at eight o'clock. Then when the silent heat invades in the early morning, I might sleep through it. When one o'clock comes, I am jolted into wakefulness, and I curse the heat. I role over and clutch my stuffed cow. In my mind I recite lines of iambic pentameter to fall asleep. Sweat rolls off my forehead. I look down from the top bunk at the cold tile floor and am tempted to sleep there. I long for five. When it comes, I do not get out of bed to grade papers. I sleep until seven and save them for tomorrow.
6
My mom sings to me when I have nightmares about Waco, Texas and Ruby Ridge. I dream David Koresh kidnaps the wife from Ruby Ridge. He throws her in the passenger side of a black car and drives away. I scream and clutch the pole of my bunk-bed. My mom wakes up and sings, "I come to the garden alone." I also fear green dinosaurs under my bed. But the music helps me sleep. The next day I admit I am plagued with fear over Waco. My mom tells my dad to stop watching the news in front of me. He thinks she should relax. But I know better.
17
At my friend Lisa's house, I go to sleep on the basement waterbed. During the night her giant black Newfoundland dog jumps in bed with me. Its name is Chloe, such a light and dainty name for a five-foot-long monster with bad breath and fur that makes me cough. I shove and pull in a Herculean effort to move her. She pants and snores, and I end up sleeping on the floor. I vow that when I get a dog, the size limit will be two feet long by one foot tall.
0
Two days after I am born. My mother sets me down on her bed for a nap. I sleep. She goes downstairs, hears the phone ring and answers it. It is my aunt Margy, asking how I am doing. My mother talks for two minutes and then looks up. She drops the phone when she sees my two-year-old sister, Caitlin, carrying me down the flight of stairs. Caitlin never misses a step as she takes her newfound doll for a walk. I do not wake up. My mother never forgives herself for what might have been.
19
Another night without air conditioning in Babeldaob. I do not sleep for other reasons. One of my students is a Satanist. A hundred consequences have resulted from her actions, and the school is in an uproar. Yesterday she told me that Satan had ordered her not to speak to me anymore. The principal worries about leaving her alone at night, thinking she will perform another séance or cut her arms to shreds. He asks me to sleep in her room with her. I fear what might find me in the night. But I agree. Later that day he regrets his decision and changes his mind in favor of my safety. I stay in my own apartment. No longer do I seek sleep in pentameter, but in God who was my help in ages past. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Perfect love casts out fear. You will not fear the terror by night. But I do. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear evil. I am alone, without faith or love or peace. I long for noise and refuse to open my eyes. I do not fear green dinosaurs or David Koresh but the pestilence that stalks in darkness. I refuse to look upon the demons in my dreams, but they already know I am afraid.
3
Late night escapades. As a child, I am known for these. In the mornings my mom finds sticks of butter in the trash can. My dad gets the milk out of the refrigerator. When he shakes it, the cap flies off and covers him in spilled milk. I am to blame. Between sleep, I sneak out of my bed and eat butter. I like how soft and sticky it is, but I hate the oily taste. Immediately I spit it out into the trash. I drink the milk but forget about the cap.
21
My fiancé reaches down and pushes me. He fell asleep on the couch, and I've been trying to sleep on the floor. I wake him with my recitation of pentameter. Today, it is Robert Frost who helps me sleep. She is as in a field a silken tent…I do not know why I should ‘ere turn back…when I see birches bend to left and right…they will not find me changed from him they knew. I tap out the meter with my fingers and mumble the words. My fiancé thinks I am strange for using poetry to fall asleep. I tell him many people do the same. Madeleine L'Engle did it. He suggests I recite them in my mind.
18
I am in Kumasi, Ghana when I get food poisoning and sleep intermittently for three days. There is no separating the haze between day and night. A doctor visits me every few hours. I sleep and drink Sprite from a glass bottle. It is probably midday when I notice the smell of spicy peanut stew. I do not know whether I am waking or dreaming. In the haze a tall African man stands over my bed. He watches me, but I fall back into sleep. Suddenly I must vomit from the smell of the stew. Stumbling into the bathroom, I bow over the toilet. My roommate rushes in and tells me there was a man in our room. She found him standing in front of my bed, and he ran. "Stay in the bathroom," she says, so I lie on the floor. I do not know why the man was there, and I do not care. I hug the stones of the floor and fall back into confusion. The man's food sits in our room. He never returns for it. Later we learn he had mistaken our hotel room for his own.
10
I lie in bed and curl my toes. I am thirsty but scared of descending the flight of stairs to the kitchen. I fear the faces I might see in the sliding door. I pull my legs out of the warm blankets and into the chill air. A quick hop gets me out of my bed and onto the floor. I am running down the stairs, past the front door. I avoid all windows. When I turn on the faucet, I keep my eyes on the stream of water flowing into my cup, refusing to recognize the sliding door. I know someone scary will be standing there. So I pivot and race up the stairs, fear nipping at my toes, until I am back under the covers, warm.
22
The radiator hums a lullaby. I stretch my legs under the blankets. My feet hang from the end of the bed. But then the sputtering begins again, and again the sinking feeling. I am never prepared for the shock of silence. I always dread the loss.