Violent Sleep

I woke late last night, curled like a fishhook in my bed.  Though I had no recollection of dreams, in my sleep I must have suffered or struggled in some manner.  My right ear was burning hot where a sun-damaged spot was recently frozen to stop the pre-cancerous advance of bad cells.  My bedding was twisted all around me—almost like a frozen whirlpool.

Somehow, I had gutted one of my pillows.  The pillow case lay on one side of me.  The pillow itself lay on another.

Sleep is an odd curse when you stop and consider.  Both Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla, fought sleep off, wanting to spend every living moment fiddling with electrical whatnots in their labs.  So many others have done the same.

But sleep is strange and powerful.  I freely allow it to take me down.  Sometimes, sleep delvers me into delicious dreams where I get the girl or my grandfather is alive again.  Sometimes sleep places a permanent wall between good days and bad. 

Last night my sleep delivered me to a violent place I have, thankfully, forgotten.

 --Mitchell Hegman