Sudafed Shadows

My eyes were bloodshot. I hadn’t slept in days. It wasn’t
from a want of trying, I did try; I’d lay in bed with the lights
off counting sheep until dawn. Maybe it was the stress, maybe it
wasn’t. I couldn’t tell you, all I knew was that I had one hell of
a case of insomnia and my eyes burned like I had smoke constantly
in them, tears welling up every chance they got.
The shadow people had came and befriended me. I’d made peace
with them; we’d become allies in the war against the sun and sleep
all the same. Where they couldn’t tread I walked freely, and where
I longed to be– the darkness– they lived and thrived. A symbiotic
cycle of give and take had been formed and though I desired to
sleep I couldn’t, I wouldn’t.
This little white box I called an apartment was the playground
in which we romped around. The lack of frames on the walls allowed
their unbroken bodies to glide smoothly from one corner to the
next. I never wanted for company. They were my best friends, my
only friends, though quiet they may be, I wasn’t much of a
conversationalist to begin with.
I sat on my tore up, duct tape patched couch spooning cheap
noodles into my mouth watching them trace themselves across the
eggshell white walls. I use to make up games to satisfy my desire
to have some connection to reality when they were about, but after
so many days without a recharge to my internal battery reality got
tossed from the window.
They never wanted to eat, only play. All I ever desired was
to sleep, and when it did come, it was during the day. I couldn’t
afford blinds so I taped up newspaper covered with aluminum foil.
During particular times of the day I could catch all the pinholes
as they made constellations on the floor. My own personal
observatory without having to wait for the sun to go down. With a
few hours of rest in me, the next few days were mine to explode
the boundaries inside my head.
Over the past week I hadn’t let my phone charge and in turn
it had died from a lack of juice days ago. I’m sure work had
wondered where I was, at least for the first twenty-four hours.
After that the no-call-no-show rule went into effect. One person
stopped by and hammered on my door. I stayed as quiet as a mouse,
each time they hammered on the door, I jumped a little, waiting
for it to stop and for them to leave.
I had turned my apartment into a tiny white cave. No
television, a busted couch with a single mattress on the floor in
the corner. The only time I ventured out was at night. The sunlight
was a natural enemy.
I’d walk quickly to the local drug store that was open most
of the night and grab a packet of Sudafed and pay with mostly
change. I could tell the cashier thought I was making meth, but I
wasn’t. I used it to combat my bodies desire to sleep. My hands
would shake a little counting out the copper covered tin.
Once you have made new friends with people that understand
you, you don’t want to lose those connections. That’s what life
was about, making those connections to people and keeping them;
making sure you fed them and kept them healthy. My friends were
the shadow people and the best way to keep them around was to keep
feeding myself Sudafed.
I wasn’t an addict to the medication. I hated pills. I was an
addict to the delusions, to the manifestations of what was in my
head, the hallucinations. I’d come to rely on them for
entertainment, for conversation, for understanding.
As I scoured my couch and the corners of the apartment for
change, I felt a change in me. It was at the heart of me, it was
my heart. After weeks and weeks of the same routine, it had ended.
The shadow people and I didn’t talk anymore. I only heard
mumbles. I tried for a few days to reestablish lines of
communication but couldn’t.
I had lost them, and with that the adhesive over the foil
started to fail. I became paranoid that they were doing it to me.
The Sudafed was wearing off, I was coming out of my stupor. I tried
to cling to it the best I could but it was no use. I was a man
hanging onto the edge of a cliff with a thousand foot drop below
and my fingers were becoming tired and weak.
I could feel my fingers slipping and with it my grasp on
insanity and insomnia. Things were coming back into focus. The fog
was lifting, the vibration around objects was lessening. I clawed
for it but it was of no use. The constellations became sunlight
and faded into dusk and I gathered enough of the sandman’s dust on
my eyelids that they couldn’t be propped open with more drugs and
then I slept. I slept for days, hours, and minutes I couldn’t
account for.
I woke up to a full bladder and a raging hard-on. I had to
piss fire and wanted to fuck the waking world. Insomnia had stolen
my life from me for longer than I could account for on my fingers,
but it was over. I had lost to the world of sleep. But it too
became my friend. It provided no dreams, no new memories that I
had to answer for. I was grateful for this as there were no new
friends I had to impress. No conversation to make, nothing to
share. I closed my eyes and I opened my eyes and it was a new day
a new beginning.
I would wake up with bloodshot eyes and have a growing desire
for coffee like nothing I had felt before.