David Wallace - Oblivion

As the entire ‘Sleep team’ knew from our Intake data, my wife’s own morbid fear of insomnia or sleep deprivation was long-standing. When, for instance, our Audrey was, as a child, ill or anxious respecting bad dreams or phantasms, it was often I who ‘sat’ up with her so that Hope could, as she would have it, ‘try to’ sleep.

Meanwhile, the initial ‘result’ or ‘diagnosis’ proffered by the Sleep specialist was, in a word, shocking and wholly unexpected. On each of the five or six occasions when special, ‘low light’ video equipment had recorded Hope sitting suddenly up-right and accusing me of ‘snoring,’ as well as on the evidently at least two of these recorded instances when I had audibly rejoined that I was not even yet asleep and thus could not logically be ‘guilty’ of the accusation, the Sleep specialist — aided in his presentation by the youthfully severe technician’s laser pointer and her ‘remote’ device’s ability to halt or ‘freeze’ the Monitor’s display in order to draw the table’s attention to a certain time specific interval in the E.E.G. — averred or affirmed ipse dixit that in fact I had, indeed, been, clinically speaking — despite my belief or perception of being fully conscious—‘technically asleep,’ predominantly in the Second or Third of the four well known levels or ‘stages’ of sleep, which the Somnologist once again outlined or glossed. As the rest of the table and ‘Sleep team’ looked on, the Somnologist (who, as usual, held and unconsciously ‘toyed with’ his ponderous, Parke-Davis key ring) delivered this verdict with all the clinical objectivity of modern science, and took pains to make it clear once again that he was empirically neutral in the marital discord and took neither one ‘side’ in the dispute nor the other. Nevertheless, I felt, upon the putative ‘diagnosis’’s initial delivery, a spasm or ‘wave’ of both anger and disbelief, which caused one of my first unconscious or ‘reflexive’ thoughts to be that Dr. Paphian et alia were in fact on Hope’s ‘side,’ and that she had somehow induced the Darling Clinic to alter the testing data to somehow indicate that I was asleep when I knew very well (meaning, every bit as well as I knew I was seated there in that Conference room, gripping the blood colored arms of the chair in disbelief) I was not. Meanwhile, my physical demeanor betrayed none of this admittedly irrational suspicion, but rather only shock and surprise — my jaw quite literally ‘dropped,’ and for a brief interval of time I was so non-plussed that I did not think or have the ‘presence of mind’ to ask about any parallel results indicated by the study and E.E.G.’s aural or audio portion — meaning, in other words, whether or not it was also confirmed that my being ‘technically asleep’ was or was not accompanied by audible ‘snoring.’ (Here I also, it should be inserted, had an erection or ‘Boner’ at this time [my first in several months], the origins and associations of which were, in my disoriented state, wholly unknown; the indirect cause may have been the sudden surge of adrenal- or stress-related hormones caused by the findings’ sudden shock.)

There were, following this alleged ‘diagnosis,’ approximately two to four seconds of collective silence, punctuated by the noise of construction activities, rain striking the Conference room’s west window, and a ringing telephone somewhere deeper within the administrative offices of the Darling Memorial Sleep Clinic. My quondam or former first wife, Naomi, never accepted the fact that I did not want children with her; I was afraid of ‘repeating the cycle.’ Also, my pager was vibrating. Hope’s own facial expression or mien, upon the Sleep specialist’s news, was the somewhat exaggeratedly ‘bland’ or ‘unreactive’ one which I knew so well from other marital embarrassments, an affect which signified that she was experiencing a sense of bitter vindication or triumph, but was disguising or effacing her pleasure in order to appear to be taking the ‘high-road’ in the conflict, as well as to avoid my possibly accusing her of vindictive triumph, as well as to show a lack of any surprise and to attempt to make clear that she had ‘never’ had or entertained the ‘slightest doubt’ that she was in the right in the dispute over the conflict, and that the Somnologist was now merely confirming what she had in reality ‘kn[own] all along.’ Only a certain slight gleam or avidity in Hope’s pale eyes betrayed her surprise and triumph at my stunned disbelief at the Sleep team’s apparent Medical diagnosis or ‘ruling.’ The sound of the ringing telephone, seemingly unanswered, continued on in this brief, silent interval prior to the young, forbiddingly nubile or ‘paphian’ technician’s there-upon ejecting, inserting and manually adjusting or ‘re-setting’ the Monitor’s display as the bland, phlegmatic Somnologist’s diagnosis now shifted its focus to my wife’s own E.E.G. measurement’s recorded ‘brain’ waves, which, on the Monitor, to Hope and myself’s inexpert or ‘lay’ eyes, appeared indistinguishable from my own display, except, of course, for the difference of its now being Hope’s own name and P.P.O. and Darling Clinic ‘Patient code’ numbers displayed beneath the template whose palsied, erratic line now signified Hope’s brain’s electrical activity during this calibrated time frame. These particular areas, Dr. Paphian averred between several sudden, conspicuous, screaming or ‘shrieking’ sounds from a ‘power’ saw or router somewhere down the corridor (there was also the ambient smell of freshly cut wood, as well as industrial plastic, in addition to the Hispanic’s pungent cologne and Hope’s customary brand of ‘JOY’), pointing out with the salacious technician’s hand-held pointer distinctive spikes or ‘nodes’ in the erratic line of Hope’s ‘brain’ waves, indicated — to (as it, so to speak, ‘goes,’ quite obviously, ‘without saying’) both of our further surprise — that not merely myself but Hope, as well, had herself evidently also been verifiably or empirically asleep during the recorded time periods when she allegedly ‘heard’ my ‘snoring’ (while, in addition or concurrently, due possibly either to extreme fatigue or adrenaline, I myself was also experiencing at the same time a radically compressed or seemingly accelerated sensuous mnemonic tableau [or, as it were, interior ‘clip’] of my memories of teaching Audrey to operate ‘her’ [although registered, for insurance purposes, in Dr. and Mrs. Sipe’s legal name] new Mazda coupe’s five speed ‘stick’ transmission in a Lower Squankum parking lot filled with myriad parallel angled lines, Audrey’s fulgent auburn hair untied or ‘down’ and chewing some type of bright blue gum, the compartment awash in sunlight and her yearly Christmas saffron bath gel’s scent, the noisome sound of her breathing and shapes of her leg as she worked the relevant pedals up and down, the sotto voce profanities when we lugged, bucked or stalled with soft squeals and bit lip and — [ “Do stop” ] — and thus, in the renewed, brief, ‘stunned’ silence after the M.D.’s second diagnosis, I myself forgot to feel triumph, ‘vindication’ or even any confusion at the apparent or paradoxical sleep ‘verdict’’s reversal. My heart had, as it were, ‘sunk’ several inches; I missed our Audrey terribly; I wanted now to go alone to help her pack and Withdraw and be borne back home [notwithstanding my foot’s by now being almost numb or ‘asleep,’ I could and would not uncross my legs], to drive at rates well in excess of the posted limit and to storm the out-of-State dormitory or ‘castle’ or ‘enceinte’ or machicolated banishment’s donjon ’s fortifications and to pound, smite or ring its massive, oaken front door’s bell in the middle or wee hours of the night and loudly say, avow or cry aloud what may and must never even be remotely thought or ‘dreamt of ’ [unlike, it went without saying, ‘Father’]. I felt very nearly over-whelmingly fatigued, melancholy, worn down and desolate or ‘alone,’ and my wet bottom or prostate throbbed, as well, gripping the burled arms’ sides in order to sit up erect), with the more pronounced or ‘acute’ E.E.G. spiking, verifiably associated with each time interval just prior to her sitting bolt up-right and crying out, clearly indicating—‘almost textbook’ being the Sleep specialist’s term of professional admiration for Hope’s E.E.G.’s distinctive ‘Theta’ wave’s spikes or ‘nodes’—Hope’s being, at each crucial, accusatory juncture, in ‘stage Four,’ the well known ‘Paradoxical’ stage of sleep associated with muscular paralysis, rapid eye movement and oneiric dreaming. From the inner construction area, two distinct hammers’ rapid sounds of impact overlapped or ‘mated’ briefly for a moment, one then ceasing and the other seeming to grow more vehement in compensation. I then either imagined, hallucinated or witnessed Dr. ‘Desmondo-Ruiz’’s — the large eyed Latin administrator’s or compère ’s — mouth mouth, very distinctly, the word ‘Su-i-cide,’ sans any emergent sound. Hope, meanwhile, leaning slightly and somewhat aggressively forward over tightly crossed legs in her chair, was asking the Sleep specialist, Dr. Paphian, in her familiarily brittle or affectedly composed and unreactive way, to please allow her to ‘get [her] facts straight here’: was the Sleep team saying that it was her husband Mr. Napier here who was, in point of fact, asleep and truly snoring, or that in reality it was ‘[Hope]’ who was asleep and dreaming (or, ‘fantasizing’ or, ‘making up’) the whole snoring issue ‘out,’ as it were, of ‘thin air’? I myself remaining seated erect (or, “ . . up! ”) with my legs tightly crossed and neutrally covering first one eye and then the other, meanwhile.