Falling Asleep

by Ava rahman

The girl woke up to the sound of the window frame slamming against her bedroom wall. Pale light spilled over the bedroom floor, illuminating the foot of her bed, the chest of drawers, and the mirror. She propped herself up on her elbows. Outside, cars drifted lazily in the streets. 

People walked close together beside them, their arms and elbows interlocked, their faces washed yellow in the lamp light. 

A laugh echoed below her window. The girl stood up from her bed and pressed her body against the ledge. A man stood on the sidewalk with a green glass bottle in his hand. The people in his path crossed to the other side of the street. Their faces were pallid in the leering shadows of the shuttered windows. Their features pulled into each other, eyes to nose to mouth. They lost themselves to obscurity, teetering off the bend in the road.

Laughter clawed out of the man’s throat as he watched them go. He sidled beside a woman in a red dress and tipped a green bottle against his lips. They swayed together in the bright circle of the lamp light. Headlights reflected on the walls opposite them and the woman’s body tilted forward. The shadows of the street, pooling in the gutters, seized her body. Just as the car rushed past them, the man’s arm shot out and gripped her wrist, pulling her back. 

The woman exhaled, steadying herself with the man’s arm and fumbling with her purse. Seconds later, a plume of smoke trailed off above her head. Her gaze followed it. When she saw the little girl in the window, she waved, but her smile faltered. The man whispered something to her. Their words had become fuzzy and drawn out. The woman shook her head, and the man threw the green bottle onto the pavement. The glass screamed as it hit the surface, covering the man’s shoes and spilling into the gutters of the street.

The girl tore herself from the window and ran out of her room, stopping and standing still when she reached the end of the hallway, out of breath and shivering in her pajamas. Her parents sat at the table, their faces illuminated in the warm light of the kitchen.

“Darling, why are you up so late?”

Her mother peered down at the girl’s face.

“I can’t sleep.”

“You can’t sleep,” her father crooned. He stood up and reached down, pulling her up so she could see over his shoulder. The kitchen bobbed like water as he walked back to her room. Her mother, sipping her tea cup, became smaller and smaller until she disappeared behind the wall.

“Here we are.”

She felt her father’s voice vibrate against the crook of her elbow. He set her down on the bed and pulled up the sheets so she could wriggle beneath them. In the darkness of the room, her father’s face was thin and flat. He had withered away to one dimension.

“Good night, darling.”

Footsteps shuffled. Light flooded in as the door opened, then blinked out when it whined shut. 

She kept her body very still and closed her eyes. The fan’s air currents blew over her face, the tops of her shoulders. Every once in a while, the engine would stutter and hiccup as it droned on.

She opened her eyes. A bluish haze bathed the room. The shadow of the window crept up to the foot of her bed. The chest of drawers bulged out from the wall. The mirror wore panels of light over its chest that rippled as if it were moving. 

Her body felt cold. The weight of her legs and arms sunk into the mattress, and when she pushed herself up, swinging her legs so she stood on the ground, she almost fell forward. Outside her window, the streets had emptied out. The man with his green bottle and the woman with her wavering smile had disappeared. 

As she made her way down the hall, she could only hear the stickiness of her feet peeling off the floor and the shuddering of her breath. Cool air pressed against her skin through the thin fabric of her pajamas. She wrapped her arms around her body, pressing them into her stomach. 

The kitchen stood still. The table where her parents had sat, their hands clasped and their heads leaning towards each other, was empty. The tiles stretched out into the distance until the shadows clamped down on them like a curtain. In the ceiling, the light bulb sockets sucked in the darkness until they became an abyss. Each time she turned her head, she felt as if there was someone standing behind her. The potted plants on the windowsill began to writhe and swell into silhouettes of the street posts. The chairs became slanted as their shadows reached towards her. As she passed the counter, her elbow tipped over a mug. It fell, screeching and stuttering like the man’s laugh. Its handle was decapitated. Glass scattered over the tiles.

She turned away and ran back to her room, slamming the door behind her. Climbing into her bed, she yanked at the sheets and pulled them over herself until they covered her face. She could feel her heartbeat against the mattress. The warmth of her body enveloped her. Her knees curled into her stomach and her chin tucked into her chest. 

Over her head, the fan hummed, its blades whirring through the air. The window was still open, its frames shuddering on its hinges, as the darkness emptied out of the streets.