Insomnia
Damned tic-tac longs itself during the night.
John has always used mechanical alarm clock because he couldn’t wake up with the sound of the radio-clock.
His sleep was too deep and with no dreams, or at least he didn’t remember them.
He can’t remember that clear when was the first time he couldn’t sleep anymore. He knows that insomnia came suddenly, only.
On a summer night some weeks ago his nightmare began...
***
He opened his eyes wide and looked at the alarm clock on the left, on the bed-side table.
Three in the morning. What could have waken him up all of a sudden? He didn’t remember of having heard any noise nor having had any kind of nightmare. Strange. He had never been the type of person who wakes up during the night.
He moved around his bed, but he couldn’t sleep. He stood up and went to the living-room to watch TV. Maybe this way he could fall asleep again.
The alarm clock rang at seven, as usual, but he was still woken up, he had already had a shower, shaved and feeling a cursed headache. He left earlier to work that day. He arrived two hours before the other employees.
He checked all his e-mails, read some news until the beginning of his work and started working as usual. The headache didn’t leave him.
He had lunch, instead of he didn’t want to, and talked only a bit to his mates.
At 6pm he left and went back home. He ate the usual congelada food, with no hungry and watched some TV, but he couldn’t fix himself at it. The headache was unsupportable.
At 9, as every day, John lied on the bed. He didn’t close his eyes. He rolled around the bed until his bed sheets tangled him all over, just like an Egyptian mummy. He woke up at midnight and went towards the kitchen to drink something because his throat was as withered as a parchment.
When he opened the refrigerator, he felt an incredible desire of eating meal. He opened the freezer and took some mince meat from it, the unique piece of meal in his pantry. He took it off the plastic and ate it there, raw, standing in front of the open refrigerator.
He lied on the bed at one am, satisfied, and closed his eyes. When he woke up, he felt like he had been sleeping for hours. The headache had returned. The stomach was boiling in acid. He looked at the alarm clock: 1:15 am! Only five minutes had passed since when he went to bed again! He stood up and went towards the restroom to vomit.
He didn’t go to work that day. The stuffed stomach and the pulsating-pain on his head blocked him from doing so. At 9am he called his boss. “It’s okay”, he said, “but go to the doctor to check this out.” He did not.
He spent the whole day lying in bed with that headache pulsating endlessly and the stomach burning due to the great quantity of analgesics he had taken, with no visible effect.
He missed his marriage. His wife has died of câncer two years before. They had no children. Better like this, he wouldn’t know how to take care of any child. He was forty-eight and felt old already.
He didn’t eat anything that day. But, at midnight, a terrible meat-hungry has taken over him. There was none in home, he would have to leave to buy some.
He dressed himself and, with the headache, left the apartment. He didn’t remember entering the elevator or where he went to, only remembered of lying nude on the living room’s sofa. Did he dream? The headache was over, but the sleep didn’t come.
He was preparing himself to go to work, the headache returned, lighter, but it was still there, when a knock on his door scared him. Who would be so early in the morning?
- New Orleans Police Department. Could you please open the door?
John looked through the peehole. A dark skinned police officer, of almost two meters tall, put the badge in focus.
- Yes, detective? – John had just opened the door and kept on saying – I’m preparing myself to go to work.
- We’ll just take a few minutes, sir. – the expression on the officer’s face didn’t agree with his words.
- Did you hear something yesterday night, around midnight? – the detective kept on.
- No from what I remember. – John became thinkative and, after a couple of seconds, he remembered something and kept on: - I wasn’t here this time, detective, I left to eat something.
The police officer looked at him incredulous and commented:
- Strange time to eat something. – he kept on. – It seems someone had the same idea yesterday night and at the same time, but gobbled up your neighbor of the floor down this one.
- How did this happen? – John asked, feeling dizzy and holding on the door’s post not to fall.
The officer shrugged off the question and answered:
- That’s what we would like to know. No-one in this building heard anything yesterday night. There are no security cameras nor anything else which can give us any clue. Nevertheless, it seems it was done by an animal, more specifically a dog. Do you know if mrs. Holmes had one in home?
- Animals are not accepted in the building. – John answered without looking at him.
- Could you help us identifying the body? – the officer asked, gesticulating at John to follow him.
He knew mrs. Holmes. Very well. Since he had became a widower, he usually searched for her services.
They went downstairs and entered her apartment, in front of the stairs.
The scene was hair-raising. Elma, that was her name, was lying on the living room’s floor, on a blood pool, around which some legist had already marked her body with a chalk. That was not the worst, nevertheless. She didn’t have face or breast. They had been gobbled up. Her belly was opened and a piece of the internecine was lying outside her body.
John felt his stomach bad. His head was pulsating and his eyes were covered with blood. He noticed a butterfly tattoed on the victim’s groin.
- That’s her. – he held the detective’s arm not to fall on the floor. – Which kind of animal could have done it to her?
- Bites like these could only have been done by a very huge dog or a bear. I don’t believe a basset could do it. – the man laughed in a very low voice.
- May I go, detective? I am late already. – John left the detective’s arm and walked towards the door.
- Wait! – the cop gave him a card. – Call me if you remember something that might help us.
John got the card he gave and left, without looking at him.
* * *
He couldn’t go to work. His head was almost exploding of pain and his stomach wasn’t really good. He felt it making him stew.
He ran to the restroom and vomited copiously. Pieces and more pieces of non-digested meat left his mouth and fulfilled the toilet.
In between the tears that blurred his eyes, he saw something that made him cold.
All over that vomited meat, there was a human nose!
Yes, that soft nose could only be Elma’s! What did John do to that poor postitute? He ate her! That was the only thing that could explain those non-digested insides in his toilets.
He fainted on the restroom’s floor. That was the only one dream he had since then.
* * *
When he woke up in the afternoon, the first thing he felt was the acrid smell of meat in his toilet. He flushed three times until he could send that to the sewer. He leaned on the wall. He couldn’t believe what he had appearently done. That could not be true! He didn’t remember anything!
The headache started pulsating again. Then, all of a sudden, he had an idea. He ran towards the telephone and called detective Taylor.
- Good afternoon, detective. This is John, from the down floor, I’ve met you this morning.
The detective promptly answered.
- Good afternoon, mr. John. Did you remember something?
- Actually, not. – John apologized on his tone of voice. – I call you because I’d like to ask you something. How do you know my neighbor was attacked by an animal and not by a human?
- Mr. John – the detective answered – we don’t know exactly what attacked the lady. At least we don’t know, until the expertise make a complete autopsy on her body. Do you have any idea?
- No, unfortunatelly I do not. – John aplogized again. – That was just because you looked so sure that it was an animal...
- The first impression wasn’t any other. – the cop answered. – The wounds didn’t look like they had been made by a human jaw. But I don’t know, everything is possible for it seems they had found some human blood on the victim and it wasn’t hers. Maybe the murder had used an animal to kill her – and, changing the subject, the policeofficer apologized and told John he had to pick up the phone.
John stared at the mute telephone on his hand. What the hell happened yesterday? How wounds made by an animal jaw appeared on Elma? A thousand crazy ideas crossed his mind. Would he be a werewolf and didn’t know it? But it wasn’t blue moon night! The legends he had read or watched on TV mixed themselves on his head.
Drowned in a terrible headache, John let his body fall on the sofa and remained there all day long.
* * *
John didn’t go to work the whole week. He told his boss a doctor had asked him an endoscopy and, because of it, he would need a week off.
The necessity of eating meat didn’t repeat during those days. But he couldn’t sleep one single minute or feed himself either for he had no hungry. The head didn’t stop aching. John imagined he would have a cerebral tumor and drowned in the blues.
Delirium lapses started happening. The lack of sleep and hungry started affecting him.
During those lapses, John saw himself a reptile – a Komodo dragon, which he had seen on Discovery Channel and had impressed him much – which, in its waddle walk ran towards a complete nude and scarred Elma, until it reaches her and starts eating her face.
He got rid of these lapses flooded of sweat and feverish. He couldn’t wait anymore for a solution, whatever it was. He imagined detective Taylor in his delirium, shooting John with a beanpole and wearing reptile cloth.
On Saturday he went to the police department to talk to detective Taylor.
- Mr. John! I didn’t expect to see you! – he held out and he kept on. – What brings you here?
With a sweating hand, John shook the detective’s hand. – I’d like to know if you discovered something about mrs. Holmes’ death.
- Yes! We did! – the detective looked very happy and kept on. – According to the analysis, he was bitten by a very big Komodo dragon. We just don’t know how it entered the apartment or who took it there.
As white as snow, John let his body fall on the chair in front of the detective.
- I’ve got a confession to make. – he said, sad, to the cop.
The detective jumped off the chair.
– Are you telling me you took the animal to her apartment?!
With the eyes covered in tears, John told the policeofficer: No! I didn’t take any animal to there. I was the animal!!! – the despair took over him.
The policeofficer sat down and, calmly, told John, looking deep in his eyes: - That’s impossible, mr. John. I see you’re upset enough with mrs. Holmes’ death, but we didn’t find any clues of any person in her apartment.
- And what about the human blood you found on her? – John’s eyes begged an answer.
- That was only infection. – the detective said. – That wasn’t really human blood. Only a few proteins were human’s, mixed to reptile’s blood.
John became upset. – But I am telling you! That was me, who became a reptile! I’ve even vomitted some victim’s body parts that day!
The detective didn’t impress himself. – Mr. John, if you don’t calm down, I’ll call an ambulance which will lead you to a public hospital... – and, calmer, he kept on. – I believe you should go to a doctor immediately. You don’t look much normal to me. By the way, I’ll tell you some things that will maybe let you calmer.
Looking deep in John’s eyes, he continued – Don’t you think we didn’t investigate well. Since the beginning you were our main suspect, and you became it even more when we knew you were a victim’s “client.” But truth is we found some images of yours leaving the building in the period of time you told us you left it. Police makes miracles with the street security cameras.
After a quick pause, he continued. – We saw all the way you went and when you returned to the building. Our expertise affirms that when you returned, the victim was already dead. So, go to the doctor and stop this bulshit.
The officer courtly, but hard, followed John until the office’s entry door.
The sun lighting his aching head, John sat on the bank in front of the police office and stood there during some time.
* * *
Next week he didn’t go to work either. The headache was each time worse. Even so, he didn’t go to the doctor. He was afraid of what the doctor could say.
On Tuesday, his boss called him. That was about his walking papers. He would have to go to the company to receive his incomes.
The depression took over his soul. An incredible desire of suiciding took over him. But he was afraid of death, more than the miserable life he was living since the death of his wife.
In that night, the hungry for meat returned. John couldn’t help the headache and stomachache. He didn’t leave home because he was so weak that couldn’t get out of bed. His pants could even dance around his waist. He would have probably losen about 15kg since the crisis began.
He fell on the floor twisting out of shape. It seemed he was being scratched alive! Sweat was flooding all around his body. His head was opening itself!
Little by little he got better and opened his eyes.
Standing in front of him, a more than two meters tall Komodo dragon was staring at him, one paw on his chin and the other with an overcoat around it. Not believing his eyes, John yelled until he had no more voice to yell.
The dragon didn’t even blink. After John had stopped yelling with no voice, the dragon opened its mouth and said, using the most understandable English John had ever listened to:
- Don’t you wait for me to dinner. I’ll have dinner out. I don’t know if I’ll be back tonight.
And after it said it, it turned and left walking in such an elegance through the apartment’s door.
John’s head wasn’t aching anymore. But that didn’t matter because he fell dead when the dragon closed the door.
He could rest in peace, then.