Open Your Eyes

If I just open my eyes, I know that everything will be back to normal. There will be nothing out of the ordinary in the room, everything will be as it should be, and I will have no reason for me to feel fear whatsoever. In fact, I’ll probably laugh at myself when I realize that everything was in my head, and I was upset for no reason whatsoever. I’ll pull my eyelids open, and the only thing I’ll see in front of me is an empty space filled with the darkness of the night and some furniture. I’ll see the ceiling, complete with the various dust and cobwebs that line the corners, then I’ll see the ceiling fan spinning slowly on its lowest setting. If I look over, I’ll simply see my wife sleeping comfortably, perhaps I’ll see the cat on the window sill looking out at the night, and a few car lights as they reflect off the glass pane. But I know that there will be nothing else, right? There’ll only be the normal motions of the night, and nothing else… I have to tell myself that there’ll be nothing else… 

In fact, that crashing noise that I thought I heard a few minutes ago? It was simply in my mind, nothing more than a byproduct of an overactive imagination and eating spicy foods too late in the evening- a nightmare that, in the end, will mean so very little to my life. I may remember it in the morning for a few minutes, and maybe it’ll cause a bit of anxiety, but I’ll laugh it off and it’ll turn out to be irrelevant in the long run. The same goes for the stepping sounds I thought I heard. Those heavy thuds that seemed to echo throughout the hallway immediately after the crashing noise- they were nothing at all. They may have sounded like they were coming from the feet of a very large and hungry creature, but it was just my brain making things up as it went along. It’s hilarious how we can scare ourselves with our own imaginations, huh?

Then, when I heard the shrieking and hissing of my angry cat, I would think he was most likely just being the guardian of the house that he pretends to be. There must have been something outside the sliding glass window that angered him- he’s always been one to jump at shadows. More likely, there was another cat, a feral one that likes to roam the neighborhood, that had walked up to the back porch and caught his eye. He felt the need to make as much aggressive sound as his tiny frame would allow. He just wants to protect his domain, and his family, and I can commend him for that. Maybe in the morning I’ll give him some treats for being such a good cat, yeah...that’s what I’ll do. 

The scream that my wife let out a few moments ago was certainly nothing more than her waking up from one of her night terrors. It must have been one of the more intense ones as the scream sounded like she was in pain, and she screamed more than once. Really though, it’s not the first time that she’s had these overwhelming nightmares, last week alone she awoke twice in the middle of the night to them. Of course, those were more like gasps than screams, but that just tells me that they are, in fact, getting worse. I’ve informed her that she needs to see her doctor and get a sleep aid, something to help her calm her mind through the night, but she still hasn’t made the appointment. I suppose I’ll have to have that conversation with her again in the morning, and hope she listens this time. 

She must have been struggling to get back to sleep after she woke up, because I’m thinking that she must have turned on the TV to occupy her mind. I’m normally fine with this, but I wish that she wouldn’t choose to watch whatever gory horror movie was playing at the time, and I need to talk to her about what volume is acceptable when others are trying to sleep. That bone crunching sound, followed by the sound of tearing flesh and entrails was incredibly disturbing, and I cannot imagine that paying such close attention to something that violent in the middle of the night would help with your night terrors- In fact I would think it would do the opposite. Just another conversation that we’ll have to have… 

There must also be something wrong with the heater; it seems like it kicked on, but it’s much too warm in here for that. Maybe the thermostat is broken again, maybe it needs a new battery or something. On top of that, the blower motor appears to be failing as the air is coming out in strange rhythmic bursts instead of a constant stream. The fact that it almost feels like the warm breath of some sort of large creature would be concerning if I didn’t have a logical explanation. I would say that I also need to clean out the ducts and vents- it almost smells like a mouse may have nestled up and died somewhere in the system. The scent is incredibly unpleasant, but again there’s a reasonable explanation for it, and it’ll have to wait until morning. I really don’t think I should get out of bed right now and start fixing various problems in the house. 

And then there's that low gurgling sound that almost reminds me of a low grow. I guess that I need to really be better about the upkeep of our house- that has to be a pipe that’s struggling to push water, or something simple like that. Sure, the sound is usually not so deep, and not so loud. It almost sounds like it’s right next to my face, but that’s not possible. It has to be that the pipe is in really bad condition, that’s all. Yeah, that’s all.

And that slight damp feeling on my face? That pipe must be leaking into the ceiling. That’s really not good- I suppose I should be really concerned about the state of things if the drip is coming down through the ceiling and dripping onto my face. The water is also warm, so at least I know which pipe it likely is. Yeah, it’s just the pipes, nothing more…

See? All of it makes sense, it’s all rational. The sounds, the screaming, the feelings, they all have a perfectly logical and reasonable explanation to them. I just had a weird dream, the cat is overly protective, my wife needs to see her doctor about her night terrors, and I need to be better about maintaining the upkeep of our place. This is absolutely all that’s happening, it all makes perfect sense, and when I open my eyes, everything will be normal, and there’ll be nothing to be afraid of. I just need to open my eyes, take a deep breath and calm down- and I’ll do so as soon as I can think of a good, logical explanation for the claw that is poking at my chest…