Хлоя Бенджамин - The Anatomy of Dreams

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

The bottom of the form was to be completed by the research team, then as now. In the line beside Patient Number, Keller had written, in his thin, recognizable handwriting: 1.

When I returned home, the door was unlocked, and Gabe was gone. Perhaps he was on his way to the lab; he might have even rumbled past me on the bus as I drove by in the opposite lane.

I paced the living room while waiting for him. What did it mean that Keller’s wife was his first patient? Maybe it meant nothing at all. Clearly, she had made herself a subject. So why did I feel a sour crunch of nausea?

I could do one of three things. I could tell Keller, but I would have to admit to snooping. I could tell no one, of course, but this knowledge was more than I could sort through alone. Despite my fight with Gabe and his loyalty to Keller—it was becoming clear to me that he saw not Keller but some kaleidoscopic version of him, a Keller whose bright particles could shift, protean, and rearrange to fit the shape of any answer—Gabe was still the person I trusted most, the only person I had.

From the table next to the stairs, the phone began to ring. I picked up the receiver and slammed it down again. Next to the phone was a list of numbers I’d laminated with packing tape. Cell numbers for Gabe, Keller, and me, landlines for my parents and Gabe’s grandmother. The lab. The university sleep center. These were the numbers we dialed most often—really, the only numbers we dialed at all.

I lifted the receiver and began to call Gabe before I realized there was no dial tone. I hung up the phone, picked it up again. Nothing.

I put the receiver down and began to trace the wiring to the wall. I hadn’t set up the landline, but I assumed it connected to the plug a foot or so behind the table. But it was strange; the phone’s clear wiring, nearly invisible against the white wall, snaked around to the stairs. Then it began to travel upward, secured with plastic pins.