She was asleep

She Was Asleep

Dave Francis

She was asleep. Finally. It had been a long three hours this night, listening to the labored breathing, wiping away the beads of sweat from the tiny child’s forehead, praying silently for sleep to come.

That was the easy part. Changing the sweat soaked sheets, going without sleep, keeping her as comfortable as possible, that was easy.

The praying was easier than easy. It would have been impossible to not pray.

The hard part was smiling. Looking into the gray blue eyes, once alive with youthful enthusiasm. Peering into the face that had never worried about anything more significant than missing the ice cream man, never thought about anything further away than bedtime that night. The eyes that now had no glow. Eyes dulled by a reality that she didn’t grasp. The sweet little face that seemed to know somehow that an incomprehensible event was imminent. Something that her body felt, but her mind didn’t and couldn’t begin to understand.

She understood the pain. She cried, begging her mother to make it stop. But it wouldn’t.

At least now, she didn’t ever seem to be frightened by the pain. In the beginning, the pain had terrified her, but no longer. Now it fatigued, it harassed, it angered, but it had ceased to have the power to cause fear. Familiarity kills fear. She was now familiar with this pain.

“At least she is resting now.” Thought her mother. “Soon she will really be resting.” Came the next thought, involuntarily. She shuddered at the thought, and at the same time, a part of her welcomed it.

Entering the kitchen, she opened a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of brandy. It was her solace. She never allowed herself to drink more than a small glass, but that glass helped. She had no-one to lean on, this was her only worldly crutch.

She poured the amber liquid into the glass, hand trembling from the hurricane of emotions battling with the fatigue that engulfed her. How long had it been since she had slept a night through? It seemed like years, though it had been only a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks without a full nights rest.

She brought the tumbler to her lips, sipping softly, feeling the warmth rush through her mouth. Her neck ached. Her shoulders were sore. So sore. She sat the glass down, laying her head down on her arms, folded on the checkerboard patterned, red and white torn plastic table cloth.

“Can’t sleep yet.” She thought. “I need to heat some water to sterilize with.”

Sighing as she stands, she moves across the green floor. The linoleum beneath her feet was cool. Its pattern of yellow stars dulled by the shadows cast from the dusty bulb hanging from above. It must have been ghastly when it was new, now it was just too old and dull to be really ugly. Taking a large pan from the cabinet above the sink, she opened the spigot and began filling it with water. The wind from the slightly open window sent a chill up her spine, causing her to shudder. “Someone just walked across your grave!” her Grandmother would have said, had she been there. But no-one was there.

The pan full, she carried it to the stove, sitting it down on the front burner. She turned the black plastic knob on the face of the old, white, gas stove, one of three dials that remained of the original five. The hiss began as she fumbled for a match from the box on the greasy back, above the clock that was too filthy to read, and hadn’t kept time as far as she could recall. The pilot light on the stove had quit working long before she had bought it. She struck the match, and held it to the gray carousel. “Whoosh!” the burner sprang to life. Set on high, she slid the pan with the water across the black metal grating over the flame to begin to heat. Hot water was essential. If the gas company shut her off next week, she didn’t know what she would do.

Turning toward the window now, she pulled down, but it refused to budge. She pulled harder, but the window just sat there. She looked at it mutely, then began to cry. Beating the top of the pane with the flat of her hand, she screamed at it, hurling abuse its way as though it had reason. The window, its white paint falling like leaden snowflakes to the floor, finally succumbed and slammed shut. She stared stupidly at her hand, the edge of her palm scraped bloody by this latest battle, sobbed harder. Grabbing her apron, she blindly stumbled to the table, falling miraculously into the chair, somehow finding it and not spilling into the floor.

“How could one life have gone so wrong?” she wondered, lying her head on the table, cushioned by the worn, once white apron. “What have I done to deserve this? What has SHE done to deserve this?” the voice in her head plaintively wailed as her eyes stung with tears.

Mercifully, the monstrous fatigue took its toll. The relentless schedule she had been assigned by this terrible fate brought sleep.

She slept. Before, she had dreamed. But not now. Now she just slept. Almost bestial in its depth and ferocity, her body aggressively searched for the rest that it craved. It found it here, in this dingy kitchen. She breathed deeply as the water began to boil.

The sounds from outside were muffled. The house closed up, the nighttime was now here in full force.

She breathed deeply, snoring in a way that was almost masculine, in great baritone waves. As her sleep deepened with time, the water boiled faster, as if somehow measuring the depth of her unconsciousness. The bubbles lapped at the top, dancing over, making hissing noises as it hit the metal of the stovetop. As it boiled more violently, it leaped from the pan with abandon, falling on the recess where the burner sat, dousing the flame. Now, with the snoring, there was the noise of the gas, hissing as it came from the silver wheel, where a second before there had been fire. Now there was none.

As the clock on the wall slowly marked time, two hours went by. The hissing continued, the snoring continued, and upstairs, the stilted breathing began to struggle in earnest. The little chest convulsed, she rolled onto her side.

The time had come. Finally, unavoidably, and with the grace of God painlessly, it had come. Death took her in its arms and carried her away from the bed that had held her these last few months. The pain was gone. For her, it was over.

Downstairs, at that moment, her mother began to stir. Lifting her head to an unknown summons, a maternal vigilance awakened, still groggy, her mind in a haze, she rose. Only the hissing remained.