Try as you might, you just can’t stay awake any longer. Your eyelids begin to close all by themselves and the text on the page grows fuzzy. When you realize you’ve read over an entire sentence and remember not a word of it, you decide it’s time for bed.
The usual routines go like clockwork. Wash the hands, brush the teeth (lazily, to preserve that sleepy haze in your brain), swish with mouthwash. Fifteen seconds instead of thirty, like the label says. You don’t care. You’re tired. Spit once, twice. Seems like mouthwash always wants to stay for good. Three times. One last pee before lights out.
Into the bedroom. You dig out your best PJ’s, and clean underwear for sleeping. It’s been really hot all day and the ones you’re wearing have that disgusting moistness to them.
Mom pokes her head in to remind you it’s bedtime, lets out a surprised “Oh” when she sees you’re way ahead of her for once. She gives you a kiss and bids you good night before disappearing down the hall, turning out the bathroom light that you forgot to turn out, yourself.
Dad’s already in bed. Leno delivers his opening monologue from the TV in the folks’ room. He usually konks out before the first commercial break, then the TV will go off and the house will be silent for the night.
All the lights in the house are off except in your bedroom. The street light outside burned out over a year ago and no one’s bothered to fix it, so the neighborhood seems to have vanished into a black void. Somehow it makes the house’s shadows thicker than they ought to be as they creep up the hallway toward your bedroom. You find yourself noticing every night now.
You turn to your bed, eyes instinctively dropping to the dark slit underneath. Except for that blackness, the entire room always looks deceptively cheerful when the light is on. Funny how you used to be scared of the closet when you were five. Dad used to tell you all the time that there was nothing hiding in the closet, and he was right.
You reach for the light switch by the door, eyes still locked on the underside of the bed. Somehow it stares back.
Your hand stops. Better not just yet. You turn on the bedside lamp first, then walk back across the room and flip the light switch. The room dims, but a safe yellow aura envelops the bed.
It’s only three feet to the mattress. Last summer Mom insisted on rearranging the entire house, including your room. The bed used to be tucked snugly in the corner; now it rests near the center of the room, with only the headboard leaning against a wall. Sleeping in it makes you feel exposed. Stepping near the shadow under the bed fills you with the sensation of teetering on the edge of a steep cliff or stepping too close to a lagoon filled with crocodiles. When it was in the corner you could get a full running start and dive under the covers.
You take a step toward the bed, diverting your eyes to the pillows. Don’t acknowledge it. It’s nothing to be afraid of. A figment of your over-active imagination. That’s all.
You clear the next two feet with a graceful bound, landing square on the center of the mattress. Climb under the comforter, tuck the bottom under your feet so there’s no way to reach in. Wrap yourself like a burrito. Nice and cozy. Except now you’re wide awake.
The hum of the air conditioner is a slight comfort. It’s deep and gentle, almost animal-like, and hopefully the only sound you’ll hear tonight. Soothing ambience always helps you get to sleep better.
You have to pee again. Not a lot, but just enough to keep you from falling asleep straight away. It always happens after all the lights are out and you’re neatly tucked into bed, but hours before your eyes have had time to adjust to the darkness.
You could probably leap clear of the bed and make it to the bathroom with little incident, but then you’d have to hope it didn’t decide to follow you. And sometimes it’s not under the bed. Sometimes it’s somewhere else in the house. You hear it wandering around out there on rare occasions, when everyone else is asleep. You almost bumped into it on the way to the kitchen late one night. Since then you’ve never set foot outside the room after bedtime for fear of being ambushed.
