Chloe Benjamin - The Anatomy of Dreams

I walked back into the house, grabbed my coat from the closet and took my keys from the basket by the door. On second thought, I took Gabe’s, too, shoving them deep into my pocket so he couldn’t come after me.

•••

The parking lot was empty when I arrived at the lab. The Hungarian researcher was with family in Eastern Europe; I didn’t know about the other researcher. I flashed my ID card and stepped through when the doors opened for me. My footsteps made a flat rapping noise as I took the stairs to the basement, the fluorescent lights turning on automatically. A migraine in a box —that was what Keller called this building. I knew he had suffered from headaches for years, though he almost never mentioned them. Every few months, I saw him reach into his pocket for a small tin filled with flat, white rounds. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought they were mints.

The lock on Keller’s office door jammed for a moment before giving way. Inside, it was silent: the air boxed and windless, the computer waiting patiently to be woken.

I sat down in Keller’s chair and slowly spun. Now that I was here, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d come to look for something, but I didn’t know what it was — all I knew was a rumbling, bone-deep feeling of unease, the Madeline sense that something was not right. Keller’s new presence at our house. His hushed conversations with Gabe. It was as if there were a dark spot dancing at the edge of my vision, a jumping bean, slipping out of view whenever I looked at it directly.

I came to a stop in front of the file cabinets. Keller had asked me to reorganize all of our hard-copy files. Right now, they were arranged in alphabetical order by last name, but he wanted them ordered chronologically by case number. It wasn’t difficult work, but it would take time — Keller had observed over three hundred subjects. I had been around for forty-eight of them, Gabe one hundred and twelve. The project afforded me unlimited access to Keller’s hard-copy files.

The main filing cabinet was nearly six feet tall; I had to stand on the spinning chair, grabbing hold of the cabinet to steady myself, in order to reach the higher shelves. I took files out by the fistful, dropping them in stacks on the floor. There it was, our work: each patient reduced to a neat pile of papers in a pale folder, except Anne. I decided to start with the present and work backward. I knew 304—that was Jamie. I put a red label sticker on the edge of his file for the year and wrote the month on a white tab in a clear sleeve. Then I put it back in the first drawer, pressed against the back.

It was the kind of rhythmic work that Keller could rely on me to do well. You’re a machine, Sylvie —that’s what Keller said to me, once, as he watched me entering numbers. It was easy, I told him — you just couldn’t get snagged. Each patient a number, each number an entry, each entry logged and saved in the automated depth of the computer’s memory. Such elegant architecture, and I the architect! Chip by chip, I built whole mechanical cities, maps of human dysfunction, each node blinking in place: 298, Maura Sanchez, a cafeteria worker who came to us after waking to find herself standing at the edge of a seventh-story fire escape; 296, bus driver Daryl Evans, who had screamed at night with the shrill and enduring vibrato of a soprano.

By late afternoon I had worked my way down to participant 212. I’d filled an entire drawer with red-labeled folders, but I hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary. I opened the bottom drawer and took out the folders inside it, five at a time. When I finished, one folder was left. Either it had dropped out of my hands, or it had been wedged horizontally beneath the others.

It was unmarked: no name, no number. Inside was a stack of old newspaper articles. An obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle , March 21, 1985. An interview with a well-known neurologist — Alec Ivanov, since deceased — in Time . An article from the Chicago Tribune , November 23, ’86: “The Fall of the Sexsomnia Defense: Delivery driver jailed for sexual assault, during which he claimed to be asleep…”

Beneath the articles was a stack of smaller, handwritten notes on beige lined paper, the edges uneven, as if ripped from a journal.

SEPT 16 ’91

Another similar report. Twelve thirty — the second REM cycle, so far as we’ve been able to discern. I turned from back to stomach, reached for him. The testicles, as before. How humiliating it is to write this out. His report, of course, and it’s all I can do to trust it. Have thought of installing a camera but I’ve no desire to see myself that way. Sticky in the morning — again, as before. But I must not blame him. Tomorrow we have an appointment with Alec, the only one I’ll see. Adrian thinks it best to see someone who doesn’t know me, but I disagreed, and he relented. Someone who knew me as I was, and not only as I’ve become: this, I believe, is true impartiality.

NOV 4 ’91

Woke again at four this morning after another night of the new system. I’ve got it down, you might say, to a science — forty-five minutes of sleep, then the alarm. I get out of bed, distract myself. Then another forty-five minutes, then the alarm, and this way I recuse myself from each REM cycle like an athlete pulling out of a match. It’s my choice, though I can tell it hurts him. Perhaps he liked me better as I was: all animal, brute instinct. But I’d rather it be controlled. The device I keep under the waistband of my pants, next to the skin. Ingenious, now that I’ve figured how to cut the noise. It only vibrates, and in doing so it wakes me while he sleeps.

JAN 1 ’92

W 112

H 5 ft 6

T 98.6

BP 90/$60

Six A.M. Exhausted. A happy New Year. I slept through the last two cycles this morning and I’m afraid to ask what happened. He’ll sleep another hour, and then I’ll do it. How much faith I had in that little toy! But it’s stopped doing its job, just like me. I may have to use noise again, though the thought of it is terrible — a regression. And who will I be if I keep going backward?

FEB 21 ’92

W 106

H 5 ft 6

T 98.7

BP 80/$55

All nighttime things have taken on their otherworldly alternates. The moon, the stars, darkness and its shadows — all these are threatening for what they precede. My perceptions must be named as part of one of two camps. I am asleep, or I am awake. I am myself, or I am not. Each morning I take vital signs to see if my self has changed, mechanically speaking. Height is stable at 5 feet 6 inches. Ditto temperature, at 98.7. Weight has dropped and fluctuates weekly depending on my cycle, which I’ve managed to retain. Adrian says I shouldn’t worry so much about control, but it’s easy for him to say, who has it. He is eternally patient with me. I’ve no business asking why. Each morning we write our notes, compare them for holes and accuracy, and compile a cross-report. I must have faith that what we are doing will be of use to someone else, if not to me.

The entries continued until October 5, 1993, with significant gaps between. Behind them was a patient intake report — an earlier version of what we used now. The boxes were supposed to be filled out by the patient, but I recognized Keller’s tiny, slanted black script.

PATIENT: Keller, Meredith

DOB: January 4, 1950

ORDERING PHYSICIAN: Ivanov, Alec

REASON FOR TEST: A) SLEEP APNEA B) HYPERSOMNIA C) SNORING D) LEG JERKS (PLMS) E) INSOMNIA F) SEIZURE G) NARCOLEPSY H) OTHER: RBD

READING DOCTOR: Keller, Adrian