Gargoyles
I want peace. A sustained sense of forgetting. The closest state is sleep.
I want to awaken, free from the presence of gargoyles perched just out of sight, on bed posts and ledges, a mix of air and water choking. Their disturbing residence said to ward off evil, discourage malevolent spirits, but first impressions say otherwise.
Have you seen them? Go look.
My husband sleeps the sleep of an untroubled mind, a concept I cannot comprehend. He embraces early mornings like the boy he’s always been, heats apple-cinnamon oatmeal in a microwave as old as our marriage. Its circular, rotating dish issues promises with every turn, a waft of warm spices that linger inside for hours afterward. He eats while catching scores and highlights in the dark.
I yearn to thrust my sadness onto him, whose broad freckled shoulders can bear it.
Here. You hold this — your well-rested, equable solidity. Hold this while I reassemble what is left. Hold this while I come to.
My husband discloses, with complete sincerity, that when I sometimes ask what he is thinking, and he replies “nothing,” he is telling the truth.
I cannot fathom the concept of a blank mind. A cartoon thought bubble filled with emptiness. My own so often in a state of frantic evacuation from some imagined disaster or ruminating over a poorly made decision.
It’s a screen streaked with coffee stains, faces glimpsed from speeding trains, the places I will never go. A cache of people I have been, who I can never be again — an ossuary of skeletons.
It’s the other things I might have said or missed opportunities for silence. An infinity of k’s across a page, trapped beneath a kitten’s paw.
The mental eddy of counting hours, made from a parade of minutes. Generating alibis and illnesses, for those I will soon disappoint in my absence. My mornings dense and leaden, the hunger for sleep, that addictive escape.
The battle to rise, both in spirit and in body. This is the language of losing your mind.
The steady breath of my husband, of a dog on the floor, a second on the bed. My own rhythmic breathing, yogic asanas, all the sleeping poses I have created.
I lie awake in mounting agitation, lit to fury, as my husband rolls to his back and snores. OH. MY. GOD! I seethe out loud. His eyes pop open, a dramatic return from unconsciousness, recoiling in confusion.
It is 3am.
I push his shoulder hard — TURN! OVER! — and he huffs, yanking covers trapped beneath the sleeping dog. Both dogs aging, slumberous, prone to snores, yet somehow their sounds do not evoke my wrath of correction.
Occasionally the floor-boy howls, his dreams eliciting primal calls. The first two times the novelty was something to talk about, to post about. . . . Wait until you hear this! Now they just pierce me like sirens, stirring adrenaline; interrupting whatever progress I’ve made creating fishbones from phosphenes, flashing stars behind my eyes.
In awe of those who sleep in vulnerability on their backs — while things that go bump in the night, or crouch upon bedposts, impassively anticipate my final release into sleep.
Beeper Peddle is a writer and healer living on the East Coast. She lives with her partner and their beloved soul puppy. Beeper writes about sorrows, lies, and deep loves. When you read her work, you will dip down into her heart and end up in all manner of body parts. Should you find yourself reflected in these words, it is merely coincidence; however, it does not surprise her you share the same heart. Find her at bethpeddle.com and @beeperpeddle on Twitter and Instagram
Laura Jeannerette (she/her) is a writer living in Pittsburgh, PA. Her flash fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction can be found in Gone Lawn, Otoliths, Good River Review, Frazzled Lit, and forthcoming in Drunk Monkeys. She describes herself as a dog in a woman’s body and credits humor, books, and her fellow dogs as the recipe for a happy life.
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