Michaela Hoffman
Wakers
Sayonara Sleep
First published by Michaela Hoffman 2020
Copyright © 2020 by Michaela Hoffman
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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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First edition
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To the first adventurers on the Other Side:
Ashley, Hilary, Katie, and Tuna
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
About the Author
Chapter 1
Sometimes reality seemed too bizarre to be real. It was 2 AM and Mr. Hoodack was parading down the hall, making cuckoo calls while unsteadily pushing an empty wheelchair. Oh, and he had somehow crowned himself with an adult brief. I’d be shocked if it were clean. The nursing staff was probably congregated at the circulation desk with coffee and smartphones, useful and accessible as always.
Being a volunteer, I technically had no obligation to do a single thing. Plus, I was off hours. I could just slink out of Ms. Kazuya’s recliner and sneak out the exit by the recreation lounge. I knew the code to get out of here. Then Mr. Hoodack could continue with his one-man party until he fell and broke another hip. I could already see his daughter thanking the attentive staff at Silver Heights with a lawsuit. God, I wish I had a black heart.
“Mr. Hoodack,” I said, standing at the door of Ms. Kazuya’s apartment. He promptly straightened like a new soldier at boot camp and turned in my direction, raising an accusing finger. “It’s the Head of Death.” Well, he wasn’t much of a looker at this time of morning either. I let out a breath and played along with the ruse.
“Sit and I won’t hurt you,” I said. Surprisingly, he tensed, and drove his wheelchair to the lounge couch where he plopped down. “Stay,” I ordered, slowly backing away. Once I flagged down two CNAs at the desk, Mr. Hoodack was assisted back to his room.
“Go back to your grave,” he hissed as he passed me in his wheelchair. The adult brief emitted a malodorous gas from his head.
Waving a hand in the air to dissipate the smell, I started for the exit until someone grabbed my arm. “Lava, what are you doing here?” Netted. So much for karma. I pulled away from the familiar brotherly voice.
“I dreamt that Hoodack led a coup in Silver Heights,” I said, “I rushed here to warn you all. You’re welcome for getting here in time.”
Jax Swords kept a straight face as he pushed me into the used linen closet. More wonderful smells. He crossed his dark arms and leaned against the door. The room was whitewashed and unpleasantly bright. “Are they haunting you that much,” he asked. “Those dreams of yours?” Three bleached socks were on the floor by his sneakers. The stench was overpowering. “How many days have you gone without sleep?”
“Look, Ms. Kazuya and I were just in the mood for a sleepover,” I said. “That’s all this was.”
Jax scratched his head before drawing in a deep breath. “You’ve been here for the past four nights. I’ve seen you while doing my rounds.” He stopped. “Ms. Kazuya is worried about you, talks about you at meals. She says you’re being plagued with dreams that are… in her words tormenting.” I clenched my fists: what the hell did he know? Jax glanced at my hands and shook his head. “If I see you here again off hours, I’m notifying the volunteer coordinator.” He hesitated, then pushed the exit button beside the laundry cart. The door opened. “It’s time to stop hiding.”
I spent a few pre-daylight hours in the park. Sitting down on a swing, I rocked myself back and forth a little. I was exhausted and wanted to sleep more than anything. But those dreams were… nightmares. Tilting my head back, my eyes filled with a cluster of faint stars.
Silver Heights was an assisted living facility in the community. It sat on the town line that divided Heirloom and Hummingbird Hollow. Heirloom was the armpit of our county, whereas Hummingbird Hollow was the diva that attracted tourists. Naturally, the kids in both towns grew up water ballooning each other. Though I grew up in Heirloom, I was later handed over to my uncle, Hugo Rowe, in the wealthy Double H (Hummingbird Hollow), where I lived now. So in many ways, I also straddled the border of these places.
It felt like small bowling balls were rolling over my eyelids; they were so heavy but wonderful. The wind moved gently through the windchimes at Silver Heights, an invite and an omen. Don’t fall asleep…
* * *
Great. Mission failed. Just like the times before, it felt like my body somersaulted into this dream-state. Lightheaded, I was looking down into a room built under intricate limestone tiles. My sister was in a bed, squirming under tattered blankets. I could only distinguish her by voice. She sang an eerie version of a song I knew:
“This is our family, where you can be you.
On good days and bad days,
we are here for you.
When awake, or when sleeping
know our love is true.
And if we part, for any reason
carry our hearts with you.”
Then after a beat, she writhed and flailed; blankets mushroomed and slapped the air. “Lies,” Her words were loose and maniacal. “Liars lie liars lie liars lie…”
* * *
Chapter 2
I woke up on my back with a swing oscillating overhead. The stars had disappeared and the sun was casting shadows over the treetops. My face was wet from crying. Azura, my sister, fell into a coma eighteen years ago. Whether she was alive or dead now was anybody’s guess. And today was her birthday. For some reason, these weird dreams took me back to our past. A past I had tried hard to forget.
Our parents raised us
in Heirloom, and when Aza was sixteen she fell for a man who helped her enter a brothel. With the new law decriminalizing prostitution, she had worker rights, benefits, and legal protection. Plus, she made a lot of money. When Aza visited the house, she would buy extravagant gifts that my mom refused to accept. But Aza never seemed cut by her disapproval. If anything, it made her speak and act with more audacity. Sometimes after their late-night spars, she’d sneak into my room, bend that lovely face over mine and whisper: “Wanna go to LoveLand?”
LoveLand was a carnival in downtown Heirloom. We’d ride The Rock Star over and over again, screaming during each dramatic pendulum descent, and laughing at the nauseated riders beside us. She’d let me hold her hand during the drop. It was the only time I felt that Aza was truly present. She was strapped into a seat, and raised hundreds of feet into the air; she could not possibly leave my side. For ten minutes, that ride kept her bound to me.
Eighteen years ago, Aza succumbed to a drug overdose at the brothel. She was seventeen. I was nine. Though it completely shattered me, the media did a thorough job of downplaying it. I mean, she was just a prostitute. Who really cared, right? She somehow asked for it. Now, off to the weather…
Why, after all this time, was she haunting me in my dreams? I closed my eyes and sighed. Jax was right. I needed to start facing a few things. Maybe this was Aza’s way of helping me find closure. In a twisted, morbid way for sure. But did I expect anything less from her?
If there ever was a perfect time to woman up, it was on Aza’s birthday. I mean, there was nothing else I could do for her. So tonight I would sleep; that was that. With the issue settled, I felt a little calmer. Unfortunately, it was a transient feeling. I unsheathed the phone from my back pocket and leapt to my feet after seeing the time. Class started in thirty minutes. I brushed off as many wood chips as I could and ran home.
“Yo, what’s on your wrist?” Clover leaned into my shoulder as I was scribbling notes in the back row. I’d just barely made it on time. My heart was still racing from the adrenaline rush. Uncle Hugo was practically left spinning when I tore out of the house.
I looked sideways at Clover and shook my wrist, half expecting a woodchip to detach. “A flower tattoo,” she mused. “How original.” I yanked my arm to my face so quickly I slapped myself in the nose. A tattoo? Probably the prank of a weirdo who skulked around playgrounds at night. But then again, I was a person who fit this description.
However the tattoo got there, it was right on my forearm: a yellow flower. Delicate and loopy. Clover sighed and raised her arms in the air, unabashedly revealing to the world that she didn’t shave her underarms. “I personally would get a tattoo of a solar panel. Then I could tell people I photosynthesize.”
I poked her with my pen. “You do realize flowers photosynthesize too.” Clover Cools and I had just started our graduate program for Occupational Therapy. We met during school orientation. At the time, she and I were inspecting the afternoon lunch layout, visually lamenting over its lack of vegetarian options.
“You a veg too?” She asked, as I plucked a cucumber garnish off a tray of ham sandwiches. “Semi, pesci, or lacto-ovo?”
“Plant-based vegan,” I clarified.
She ceremoniously touched her pinky finger to my forehead. “The universe applauds you.”
And we’ve been friends since then. Clover and I were drawn to grad school for very different reasons. I volunteered at Silver Heights as a kid and loved watching the therapists, especially the occupational therapists, help patients in the skilled unit become independent with their life activities. Sometimes they’d let me be part of the sessions, making soup or folding laundry with my older friends.
At that time, Uncle Hugo did all that he could to get me to socialize with peers my own age. I was a pitiful goalie on the school’s soccer team. I was the tap dancer who “charleston-ed” into a speaker that fell on the pianist. The members of the Mime Club still turned their noses up at me when I passed. In Hummingbird Hollow, I was still just a broken mirror from Heirloom.
Clover was raised by her parents in a tiny-house community. Her mother injured an arm in a woodworking accident, and needed to have it amputated. Clover was awed by the therapists teaching her mom new tricks for getting dressed and showering. At twenty-six, she left the community to go to occupational therapy school. We visited on the weekends sometimes. She had one hundred “family” members. Some were teachers, some herbalists, some gardeners, others were tour guides and self proclaimed monks.
“Excuse me,” a person nearby cleared his throat. “You’re in my way.” I glance up at a man with piercing brown eyes. His gaze was so close and forthright it almost didn’t register that he was sitting in a wheelchair. My seat was blocking his path.
“Howdy newbie,” Clover said, as I scooted my chair closer to the desk. “Class started three weeks ago. How’d you get in?” He stopped as he rolled behind me, gloved hands poised on the rims of his wheels. He didn’t look back at us, but his words were enough to evoke his earnest expression.
“I was accepted at first,” he said carefully. “But then my acceptance was revoked.” Clover and I swapped glances as he continued. “I filed an appeal, and won, granting me access to the OT program.” He turned to face us head-on. “Nothing’s going to stop me from becoming an OT.” Clover, a closet news reporter, leaned into my space to get closer to him.
“Why’d they try to slash your sails?” She pressed.
After a moment, he laughed. “Because they didn’t think I would swim.”
It wasn’t easy adjusting to Double H as a kid. When my sails were slashed, I had trouble bouncing back on my own. My uncles, however, were my saving grace. On Saturday mornings Uncle Hugo led a yoga class on the front lawn. While Uncle Mason and I watched old cartoons in the living room, tree poses and colorful spandex filled the adjacent window.
“Don’t you get sick of watching them?” I asked on our first Saturday together. We were eating breakfast on the couch. “I mean, the exercise guilt.” Uncle Mason was a glorified couch potato. Aside from sleeping, he spent all of his time in the living room, aka his office. This was technically true as he was a computer software designer who worked from home.
He told me his greatest epiphanies always occurred while he was sitting on the leftmost cushion. That spot knew him so well his lower torso was imprinted on the fabric like a fossil record. My Uncle Hugo, on the other hand, was a motion maverick. Whether he was creating a miso-avocado salad or dish detergent from vinegar and baking soda, he positioned himself in warrior one or two. He was soft and quick while Uncle Mason was rough and methodical. They certainly made a unique parental team when I was growing up.
“Exercise guilt,” he rolled it over his tongue and the taste was visibly sour. “There’s only one thing in this world that I feel guilty about: skunks getting their heads stuck inside soda cans.” I blinked at him while he tapped the tablet on his belly. “And no one cares because they’re ugly and smelly.” He mused, hunching over to type furiously and passionately. “So we’ll make a petition about it. I sent it to your email. Make sure you sign it, Lava. Let’s save the skunks.” From then on, my adoration for my adopted fathers silently grew.
“Lava,” Uncle Hugo sang as I walked through the foyer. “Be sure to bolt the door, because this family is staying in tonight.” I peered sideways at him and hung up my bag.
“What he is delicately saying,” Uncle Mason started, emerging into the kitchen with his smartphone in hand, “is that we are shackling you to the property. One happy sleepover with your doting uncles. No leaving this house. No exceptions.”
“Seriously?”
“I’ve programmed my phone so that we can locate all of your electronic devices, wherever you go,” he boasted, waving his phone triumphantly.
“You definitely need another hobby to fill your time,” I said.
“Oh, the eye roll, I’m trembling in my slippers,” he said, tousling my hair as he mosied to the bathroom. Of cou
rse he would put me under millennial house arrest. But then again, I did have to sleep tonight. It was my “birthday gift” to Aza.
A clanging utensil interrupted my thoughts and I looked up to Uncle Hugo’s weak smile. He retrieved a dropped fork, set it neatly on a placemat, and tossed the dinner salad for the umpteenth time. I took the three ceramic plates on the counter and set them on the mats beside the silverware.
“Please don’t worry,” I said. “I know I’ve been acting strange lately. But now, I think I’m okay.” My uncle’s eyes were gleaming and brimming with tears, bottom lip trembling. This man had the most sensitive tear trigger known to humankind. Almost every anxiety turned on the waterworks. Case in point: he got us kicked out of the theatre when we tried to see Bambi once. I still don’t know how it ended.
The tongs were pressed poignantly to his chest as he approached me, obviously waiting for permission to hug. He used to read me books with inclusive, consent-philic ideologies and messages that he tried to model for me. I opened my arms to him in welcome and he rushed into them, sobbing. My shirt became wet with tears.
“Oh sweet peach,” he choked. “I feel so worried when you stay out all night without calling or letting us know where you’ve been.”
Wakers: Sayonara Sleep Page 1
