Sleep Revised

by Wright, Michael

  “And why are you telling me this?”

  “Because it scares the hell out of me.”

  More lightning, and the rain grew heavier.

  “Maybe you should talk to a priest about that.” Clark said, draining the rest of his coffee.

  “I go to church.” Morrison said, “I have ever since Patricia got sick. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  A steaming plate of eggs and steak plopped down in front of Clark, and he turned to see Molly had set up behind him with all of their food, he hadn’t even seen her come up. She reached behind him, he could hear plates scrape against the laminate, and she laid out Morrison’s food. The toast kept on a separate plate, and a selection of butter and jam thrown in front of it. Clark could see the red juice leaking from the breakfast steak and into the pile of eggs that were lightly peppered.

  “You need more coffee, hon?”

  He nodded, and in a smooth stream his cup was refilled, followed by the landing of two more mini-moos. The pot turned smoothly and topped off Morrison’s as well before she leaned back, her hips thrust to the left where she held a tray in the other arm. “You two good?”

  “Yes, Molly.” Clark said, “Thank you.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Clark took a fork and began to mix around his eggs.

  “Patricia still thinks about you tw—well, you sometimes.”

  “That’s nice. Tell her I said hello.” He took a bite of the eggs and with minimal consideration reached across the table to get the salt and began to run it across the top of the eggs.

  “How are you doing, anyway?” His tone dropped.

  “I’m fine.” Another bite of the eggs. His free hand hunted for the knife.

  “You sure? I mean, you know there are support groups and stuff, things to help people after.”

  “I know.”

  Morrison chased his food around with his fork, “It might be a good idea.”

  “You remember I’m a shrink?”

  “You know that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I’m not in the mood to talk about it.” Clark said, taking the knife and slicing into the steak, cutting the thin meat into bite size pieces before mixing it with the eggs. He considered the hot sauce on the table for a moment, “It’s not you, man. I’m just not in a good spot right now.”

  Morrison nodded, “I get it. You haven’t seen me since then, and with all that’s gone on…I get it.” He took a bite of his own food. “This is just as good as I remember it.”

  Clark nodded, looking across the diner back at the boy who sat in the back with the Macbook. The kid was packing up, as if he was done for the night—his attention remained in their direction however.

  “I’m going back over Jon’s sessions. I started after I got the call.” Clark said.

  Morrison looked up, “How?”

  “I have the tapes. I keep them in my apartment.”

  “You still use tapes?”

  He nodded, “I like to keep things simple.” A bite, “It reminds me of my dad. He had a huge collection of cassettes. I always loved them.”

  Morrison grinned, “Not to break your client privilege, but you’ll maybe tip me off if you find out something about what I showed you?”

  Clark shifted, “I’ll see what I can. If it falls into a gray area and I remain anonymous, I’ll let you know what I can dig up.”

  Across the diner, he saw the kid head to the register, and flag down Molly, to pay his ticket doubtlessly. Clark watched him for only a moment before he turned back to his food. “But if it’s something personal you know that I can’t share it.”

  “Even if it would really be of help?”

  “Jon’s case is closed so far as I know. He’s dead. Unless I come up with something that conflicts with your verdict on it, I can’t disclose it to you or any of your buddies. My hands are tied here.”

  A sigh, “I understand.”

  “Hey guys?” Molly appeared beside them, “I know this is really weird, but I was asked to give this to you.” She held out a piece of paper.

  Clark glanced at Morrison, and then took the paper from her. “Who gave it to you?” He asked as he began to unfold it. It was a normal piece of notebook paper, torn out of one of the ones you could get at the local dollar store. He set it down on the table.

  “That kid that just left. He asked specifically that I give it to you.”

  He took it in his hand, and gently unfolded it.

  His blood ran cold and he held it for a moment before he looked up at Morrison. A dark expression rested on the detective’s face, and he nodded at Clark and stood, heading quickly as he could for the door, out into the rain and after the kid who had been so fascinated with them only moments ago.

  “Where’s he going?” Molly asked, whipping around in that direction.

  “To try to find that kid.” Clark replied, continuing to hold the gaze of the eye.

  “Is something wrong?” Molly asked, sounding alarmed. “Did I do something?”

  “No, Molly. And he won’t catch him.”

  She looked surprised, “Why not?” She also held the ticket in her hands, “He just paid his bill.”

  A shrug, “Just a gut feeling. That kid planned on disappearing if he wanted to leave this for us.”

  “Well what is it?” She asked, leaning onto the table and staring at the drawing, which was done in crude pencil with a terribly unsteady hand.

  Clark looked up at her, and crumpled the paper in his hand, and the eye that stared out at them, encircling a strange, ancient figure. “I have no earthly idea.” He said.

  3

  The glass in front of him was only half full. He preferred it that way when he was fixing a drink. His glass of choice held about eight ounces, and he only filled it to the halfway mark. Bourbon and water gently mixed together. He tottered the glass with the edge of his finger, watching the liquid slosh back and forth as he shifted the glass around. He glanced down at the file open in front of him, running his eyes over it. The various notes he had taken over the past few years, all cross-referenced with the session tapes that he kept neatly stored away in his closet. Each one was meticulous and detailed, outlined in such a way that his strictest professors would have been proud—but not a single one of them containing a single hint as to what the eye was all about.

  He flipped through it again, glancing at the Post-It’s that littered the corners, the red-pen scribbles from corrections or cross references, looking for that fated clue that he knew would explain just what Jon had been into and had him with that piece of paper in his pocket.

  Clark looked up a moment, and met eyes with the photograph that adorned the edge of the bar he sat at. Beyond that was the kitchen, which held only more photos tacked onto the fridge with cheap magnets that he almost never looked at when he went to the fridge to pull out leftovers that would inevitably become a simple dinner as he worked. But he always stopped and looked at the picture that sat in the ornate frame beside the telephone that had long ago been disconnected in favor of a cell phone. No matter how busy, he always stopped to look just one more time.

  He forced himself to turn the page and look back at it. On the corner of the page was one of his business cards, pretentious, yet simple as they were, and on the back of it was a scribbled phone number in the scrawl that seemed to be inherent in anyone with the title “doctor” in front of their name. He knew who it was before he read the note below it. Jon’s sister, Samantha. The area code was way out of state—California, if he remembered correctly—and he struggled to remember when he had gotten it, and why.

  He took a careful sip of the bourbon, and winced as it went down, swirling the cup again to better mix in the water. “Cheap crap.”

  Clark stared at the phone number, knowing that soon enough he would have to make that phone call everyone dealing with a lost patient had to make. The one where people yell at you, cursing you, telling you that you should have done more, should have been there, should have bee
n a better doctor when it wasn’t even your own fault. Not your fault, you did everything you could but it still wasn’t good enough, not for you, not for anyone.

  I suppose that I don’t have any room to talk, he thought, I was one of those people at one time.

  Bourbon had cured him of that. Sadly, that was not on his list of prescriptions that he could offer to write out to the family, or in this case, the poor girl at the other end of the country who was struggling just like her brother through the remains of the hell that they’d lived through. Recommending alcohol to someone like that was a good way to lose a license.

  The card slid out from the clip easily and he placed it on the counter next to the folder, and flipped around to the next page.

  March 22nd

  Agitated today. Restless. Patient won’t sit down in one place. Patient is talking about having more dreams. (see tape 5 in patient’s file) Dreams have increased in frequency and patient describes having trouble sleeping despite the sleep aids prescribed.

  Perhaps try another one?

  Disturbed sleep has progressed to prolonged tremors upon waking. Feelings of panic, disorientation, and heaviness. Not sleep paralysis, he can move.

  Dreams involve his mother and someone else.

  A shadow?

  He spotted a note off to the side of the page: Who is the shadow?

  “Just who are you?” He said aloud, chuckling to himself.

  The father?

  “Who are you, Mr. Shadow? And why do you like to come out to play?” Clark washed down the words with a bitter sip of bourbon, feeling that terrible buzzing in his head beginning to recede as he continued to drink.

  The clock reported an ungodly hour, but he continued to flip through the file, spotting notes he had made about the shadow, that kept popping up with further frequency throughout all of March and April of that year. Sometimes the shadow would appear in the room with him, other times it was simply following him around, as if it were stalking him through the dream, but always watching. Always waiting for him.

  He flipped over to May, and then he saw there were three shadows.

  Not the father.

  He continued to peruse, reading through the scant scribbled notes of the sessions, trying to piece together partly from memory what they had talked about, what the shadows could mean. Whenever it came to recurring dreams he tried to figure out what the symbols might mean to the person, why their subconscious was bringing them up, but no matter how he pressed he couldn’t seem to find them.

  I’ve gotta listen to the tapes again, he thought as he swigged the last of the bourbon, rubbing the jelly-glaze from his eyes and placing a marker in the file. He rubbed the worn spot where a ring once sat on his left hand, taking a last look over the notes, wishing he had been more exhaustive before he closed the file and looked over at the business card that he had placed to the side. Such a simple series of digits printed on it, wondering if that number was even valid anymore.

  Morrison had mentioned talking to her. He supposed that the number was probably the same—which left him with no excuse for not calling. No excuses for not facing the music that he dreaded so dearly.

  In the morning, he stretched as he stood. In the morning.

  CHAPTER TWO

  1

  Clark’s chair jerked to the knock at the door.

  His papers scattered. The coffee in the mug sloshed precariously, still steaming with freshness. The tape recorder landed in his hand as he leaned for it, and he set it back up on the table, looking up at the door that he had left wide open. He breathed deep, washing the buzz of drowsiness from his eyes. “Hello?” The word sounded groggy even to him.

  When do I ever fall asleep here? He scolded himself.

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” the young woman said. “You’re Dr. Bell?”

  “Yes, yes.” He straightened in his chair. “No problem, I, uh, seem to have been a little lax on the job here.” The papers piled again in front of him as he moved his hands. “What can I do for you?”

  The woman stepped in the door frame, hardly filling it, and paused. “You knew my brother. I wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

  Crap. “You’re Jon’s sister?”

  “Yes.” She stepped forward. “I’m Samantha Morgan.”

  He shook her extended hand as he stood, tucking his tie back toward his torso as it wandered onto the desk. “Clark Bell. Would you like to take a seat?”

  She followed his extended arm and placed herself into the cushioned chair that faced the desk directly. shifted slightly, swinging blonde hair over her shoulder and pausing to look at the extended couch off to the side of the desk.

  “I’ve been meaning to call you.” He eased back in the chair, “It just honestly has slipped my mind…I wasn’t sure if I had the right number or not, and meant to verify through the authorities but…”

  “I understand.” Her arms bunched together in her lap as she leaned forward onto the raw-rubbed knees of her jeans. One black-booted leg swung over the other and she turned her attention away from the couch and the bookshelf to facing him. Her fingers dug into the frayed edge of her black jacket as she did.

  “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “I already had some.”

  He scratched the back of his head, “I have some water and soft drinks too, if that’s a little more what you would prefer.”

  “No, thank you, doctor.”

  “You can call me Clark.”

  She nodded.

  “You’ll pardon my lack of preparedness, I wasn’t exactly expecting you. How did you find me?”

  She shrugged, “I asked the detective, Morrison I think his name was, who identified him. He said it was you. There aren’t very many Clark Bells who are a psychiatrist in town.”

  “I see. You phone-booked me?”

  “Google.”

  A sip of coffee, “Oh, okay.”

  The clock on the far wall ticked, echoing off of the dull surfaces, filling him with uneasiness. He watched as her eyes surveyed him up and down, going from side to side first, as if he were being scanned in a computer that intended to make an exact replica. He rapped his fingers on the surface of the desk in unsteady rhythm.

  “So you treated my brother?”

  “Yes.”

  A nod. Polite, nothing more. “How long? He never said how long.”

  “I’ve treated Jon for two years. With a break a couple times. Aside from that he was usually in here once a week.” He reached for his coffee again, “Didn’t he tell you about his therapy?”

  “He mentioned it a few times. We didn’t get a chance to talk too much, but he said it helped him out a bunch, so I supported it as much as I could.” She tilted his head, and he spotted a small stud in the cartilage of her nose, glimmering softly in the artificial light. “He stopped talking about it after a little while, though.”

  “What did he talk about?” Clark asked.

  She stopped.

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “He talked about Mom. He talked about some dreams he was having, and church, but that’s about it.”

  “Jon was pretty fond of church once he got into it.” That was unnecessary.

  She nodded, “Yeah. I pulled him into it in a lot of ways. It’s actually why I stopped by, initially.” She reached behind her to a bag that he hadn’t seen her set on the floor, and pulled out a slip of paper. “I scheduled the funeral. It’ll be at his church.”

  Clark looked over the paper: “Holy Trinity?”

  “Yep.”

  “He never really told me where he was going. Just that he befriended the priest there. He spoke fondly of him.” He set the invitation to the side of his desk, and made sure it was on top of the card that held her number. He didn’t want to have to explain that one as well. “Father Capaldi?”

  Another nod. “He’s a good guy. I spoke with him this morning before I came over here. Went to a seminary up in Pennsylvania somewhere with my rector .”
>
  “You’re an Episcopalian as well?”

  “Kind of.”

  “That’s interesting.” He rubbed his thumb across the top of the paper, staring at it, trying to remove his eyes from her. He wasn’t sure why, but it was hard not to stare. “So you’ll be in town for a couple days, then? At least until the funeral?”

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be around. I had to put in for absence at the studio back home. His apartment needs to be gone through before the landlord starts throwing things in the street.” She shifted her eyes toward him, scanning him. Her eyes were a rare mixture of blue and green. They seemed to take the most potent highlights from those two colors and mix together, creating a piercing stare, one that he was unnerved by, yet also drawn to. “Most of it is probably junk, but I want to pick up a few things that he has there.”

  Clark took his turn and nodded. “Do you have a place to stay?”

  “I have a hotel room.” She shifted again, switched one leg for the other. He noticed that she seemed unable to stay in one spot for long periods of time. Her words were sharp and pointed. Perhaps she was nervous? Perhaps she just didn’t like him? Not that he could blame her if that was the case.

  “Okay, good.” He said, realizing that the question might have come across the wrong way.

  “You ask a lot of questions,” she said suddenly.

  A pause, “Um. Yes, yes I do. It’s my job and I don’t know quite how to turn it off. Does that bother you?”

  She pointed a dark red fingernail at him, “There you go again.” There was a sliver of humor hiding behind her words, but only a sliver.

  Can’t argue with that.

  “No, it doesn’t bother me. Sorry, it was just something that occurred to me.”

  “No need to apologize, it can get on people’s nerves.” He thought of the last time that someone had mentioned that to him, and wished he hadn’t gone that far into the past. “It’s day after tomorrow, isn’t it?” He knew that it was, and he also knew that was another question, but he couldn’t handle her stare.