A Bedtime Story: [speculative fiction]

I'm sitting up in bed. The light is low. Outside my window in the soggy paddock, the night is replete with the calls of frogs. A gentle yet persistent rain caresses the window. I gently pinch the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. My eyes are closed. An observer may assume that I'm quietly reminiscing about my day, perhaps even engaging in a mindfulness practice, weird though it might look.

In fact, a whirl of colour behind those closed lids distracts me. I'm not meditating or training my vagus nerve. I'm searching for answers. Or perhaps I'm looking for the right questions, some of which I don't even know I don't know.

It's a testing time trying to get to the bottom of my existence. And the existence of those to whom I feel close. Not to mention the other eight billion, give or take, who may also wonder how it is that they have come into existence. Without a choice in the matter.

I take a deep breath and exhale slowly, counting the moments. I keep my eyes closed  (a pretty clever trick,  given I'm writing this at the same time) and try to disengage from the swirl, allow myself to spin off to the outer edges of the whirlpool.

A blackness, as thick as wool, presses in on me. It's palpable. It feels like fear. I push my mind into it - I think I even move my hands in an attempt to pry it apart. 

But it isn't me who's moving. It's the black fog, sliding past and around me again. I stop my insistent desire to take action and let the motion complete its passage. In time, a realisation strikes me.

Everything is in my past and there's nothing I can do about that. 

And then -

Everything is in my future and there's nothing I can do about that either. 

WTF!

I open my eyes. I notice that my bedroom is still here and that nothing's changed. 

At first. 

Is the bed a little warmer? Do I have a small ache where my head rests against the headboard? Has the leafy palm in my room grown just that little bit? Have the frogs gone quiet?

Nothing's changed, but everything has altered.

Is this what it's like with my family and friends, with the people I love?

Is this what its like? With love? Affection? Dislike? With uncertainty?

Holy smoke! What am I doing to myself? I just wanted to get into bed and go to sleep, for chrissake!

I force myself to slide down under the covers and get comfortable. Ah! Warm. Nice.

Time to close my eyes. It's time to dream (I think of a Billy Joel lullaby) ...

I wake to a dark room, crying my heart out. There are no tears and I attempt to will them into my eyes. For some reason I want my cry to feel real. Visceral.

After a few moments, I feel the creep of embarassment (why? There's nobody else here). I sit up again. It;s cold in the room. I try to recall the dream that propelled me into wakeful distress. Somebody walking away from me. A woman? My mother? My father? No, it was a woman. I can still see the shape of her but I can't make out who it is/was. I make a decision to re-enter that dream so I can make sense of it. I've done it before. I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands. Close them again.

Useless idea. I can't go back there. Experience tells me that, even if I manage it, it always turns out to be a different dream. Besides, I'm still sitting up!

Shit!

It seems I can't control anything tonight. At every moment, existence seems to shift, to slide that little bit, teasingly, out of reach.

It gets me to wondering about how much control we have over our lives. There is so much that's interrelated, over which we have no control, and yet, we can choose our attitude to it when it arrives. We can choose what level of responsibility we will take for our actions. Or should have taken.

I knock my head gently against the bedhead to make sure I'm still here. 

I wonder if I wouldn't do better if I took responsibility for my choices in the moment I make them, rather than afterwards. Surely I'd cut out so much regret, guilt, what-ifs? Surely.

I interlock my fingers behind my head and let that idea float around for a bit. The darkness seems less intrusive. Yeah. Be accountable right in the moment when time is neither back there nor over there, just passing.

Sounds reasonable, right? Be fully responsible at every given moment.

But wait. What?

My fingers slip apart and my head raps on the bedboard again. 

'Ouch!' I hiss. It sounds like a yelp. I didn't mean that to happen. I manage to keep my eyes pinched closed.

A deeper question inserts itself (I really didn't expect this to be my bedtime experience!). Who else, if not I myself, is responsible for what I decide and do? God? My girlfriend? My parents? The dog?

I suppose what I'm trying to tell myself is that it's better to take and hold your responsibility when it's most needed - in the moment, rather than at some distant, tear-drenched abyss of regret.

Suddenly I feel a weight slide off both my shoulders and I'm game again to open my eyes. That map I've been creating and following all my life, shines with extra colour, contours ... and contradictions. The framed Mandala hanging on the wall opposite my staring eyes takes on a mystical glow. There's a pattern there. A horizon in the distance. A story to walk into.

Bedtime at last. Time to sleep.

Nelson, South Australia. A view from the rock (E. Rijs)