Tahsen Hossain - Assignment 10 - 3rd Grade Me and the Sleep Paralysis Demon

Sleep has never been welcoming to me. The ambient world whispers through the night air in hollow voices, Don't close your eyes. The pillows push my neck as to cause me just the feeling to adjust and adjust as if it too wishes that I keep my distance from sleep. The bed groans with each slight twitch of my impatient hands, tightly grasping the blankets protecting me from the wind chill seeping through the gap in my window in a semi-constant sshhssshhhhh. And for the moment I am convinced. My sketchbook is laying on the ground beneath my desk and my small collection of five or six books on my wardrobe both of which are out of my reach and require me to get up and turn on the light. I lay in limbo, not so bored as to attempt the seemingly Herculean task of moving and certainly not desperate enough to die of dysentery or cholera ad infinitum in the Oregon Trail on my small but indestructible Nokia phone.

So with nothing better to do, I stare up, motionless, at the ceiling as I start seeing slow creeping changes in the creased white plaster. "That can't be, I must just be tired", I think. But I keep my eyes open and focused on the shadows as they seem to slither like little white maggots across a blank piece of paper. At first, I just wanted to know why they were moving. I stared and stared. Eventually, I realised that the shadows were moving because of the headlights from cars driving past refracting through the window, but at that point, it didn't matter. I kept staring and staring; I don't know why. Maybe a little part of me had already conceded that the walls were alive and couldn't quite take back that concession. I do know that it felt discomforting like somehow my thoughts weren't my own anymore.

Click.

"They're early." I bolt upright. The two familiar hushed voices of my parents follow the front door's slow creak. Out of pure habit, formed from years of staying up late, my body drops to the annoyingly soft mattress in dead silence, letting my limbs lay limp sprawled randomly across the crinkled sheeting, and feigning my breath to the strained but soft flow that comes with sleep. The dim light from the single bulb no one's changed in two years illuminates my room and I stay still as stone, hesitant even to allow my chest's due diligence, lest I look too animated in my counterfeit slumber.

My head turned away from the doorway as to conceal my eyes, which despite my best argument, insisted on remaining open. And as my gaze wandered through the far side of the room it halted spitefully on the window as a gust of cold wind passed through the gap in my window and hissed in my face. Ssssshhshssssshhhhhh. But soon something felt strange. Made clear by its glare in the window, the light was on despite the considerable amount of time that had passed. I had begun to suspect that my parents had uncovered my ruse. "Did I miss something? Was I too obvious?" But then I thought, "Then why haven't they told me off yet? What stalls them?" I'm perplexed. But then I inspect the glass of the window one more time, inquiring it as a magic mirror to reveal the secrets of my shadowed bedroom, hoping to find some clue to the condition of my parents. My vision was blurry and imprecise so I couldn't decipher the reflection. I closed my eyes for a moment and when I reopened them the reflection in the glass was clear. All I saw was an empty doorway. My parents were not home.

I shut my eyes one more time. I don't know why; I was scared. After all, the walls are alive, the night air can speak, why should it not be that...

Shhhh......

In an instant, my fingers go numb and the room's temperature descends to freezing. I can no longer feel the blankets around me. And another blast of wind...

Shhhhhshsshhhh...

Force. I feel something push against me. Pushing my chest only lightly. Then a little more. And more. And more. The shock from the icy wind recedes and I know what I have to do. I collect all my courage and I fight. I flail my arms and kick and scream but I don't feel my arms move, my legs don't extend, and I don't hear any such scream. No matter how much I fight it, nothing happens. I'm frozen, trapped in my own body. I can't push anymore and for a moment I concede again. It felt like I would stay motionless forever.

Shhhshhhshhhh...

"I don't want to be this cold forever." I tried again. Starting from my fingers and toes, I try to move something. Anything. Until I finally made it to my eyes. I didn't want to open my eyes. What would I see? Some horrifying monstrosity or vindictive apparition. But it had to be done.

I opened my eyes, awake again. The blanket at my heels, my pillows kicked and thrown around and my parents in the doorway wondering why I was screaming at 4:30 AM on a Sunday night.