Inclination

Confounded, Crosswords, Coffee

September 1994

Sheets: they either feel like a comforting paradise or a tangled, balmy inescapable prison. You can't remember a time when your sleep was of a normal, undisturbed stretch. Most nights bring you a maximum of five or six hours and if you're lucky, sometimes you can sleep an entire R.E.M. cycle without interruption. Tonight is not one of those nights.

Your feet are wound up and sweaty and you haven't looked in a mirror but just from the way your hair falls onto the pillow and across your face, you know it looks like shit. Your apartment door flung open and was accompanied by cackles and loud, smacking kisses noises about two hours ago.

That's not what woke you, however, it was the glass of wine and bowl of Cocoa Puffs that you had for dinner that resurfaced in the reincarnation of indigestion and a work-related stress dream.

There was silence for several minutes after the front door slammed against the wall and reverberated down the hall, but now you can hear muffled grunting and you're folding your pillow over either ear to stifle the obvious sex sounds from mimicking your personal failures. The grunts and groans become frenzied and vulgar before dying into dispassionate ashes and your mouth is suddenly dry as you crossly fling off your sheets and blankets to make your way to the bathroom.

The hallway is dark and cold; your roommate insists on using personal electric heaters in your bedrooms to save on the gas bill and the stark contrast between your bedroom and the rest of the apartment has you wishing that you were wearing more than underwear and a t-shirt.

His bedroom is quiet now and you're tip-toeing to avoid creaks in the old, worn wooden floors. The bathroom feels like a safe haven and you're hissing when your underwear slips to your ankles and your bare bottom meets the ice-cold porcelain of the toilet. You gasp in shock when the door is flung open hastily but you're hardly embarrassed: you and your roommate are close; you've been friends for over a decade and he's seen every bit of you in the past ten years.

When you look up and make out the silhouette of the person before you, you're suddenly understanding that it's not your roommate in the doorway but rather one of his new and varied love interests. You're groaning and pressing your legs together, "hey," your voice is worn, "just a minute-" but you're being interrupted.

"Oh! Fuck, shit. I didn't - know - so sorry," and they're backing out of the threshold and politely closing the door behind them.

A deep yawn draws from your belly as you hold your hair in a makeshift ponytail to rinse your mouth and take a sip of water from your cupped palm before you leave. Your roommate's temporary fling is standing at a respectable distance from the door when you emerge, their body leaned against the wall in the hallway and their foot kicked up to rest behind them, "sorry. Did we wake you?" You shake your head and start to walk back to your room but they're speaking again, "I didn't know he had a roommate. He - we just met. I'm normally more careful than that."

You smile and back up a few steps, "s'okay, you seem pretty careful to me. Goodnight," before you're spinning on your heel and shutting yourself back in your sleepless dungeon of a bedroom.

Just as you had expected, your sleep had hit its limit at a measly five hours and now you're in the kitchen in a bathrobe, sipping tea from your favorite salmon-colored mug and blankly flipping through the Sunday newspaper. A soft voice halts your weak concentration, "hi - sorry again - um, g'morning," your head stays angled towards the paper as your eyes glance up and then back down at the crossword puzzle.

"No worries," you drop your pencil into the crevice of the newspaper and turn your full attention to the person in front of you, "can't sleep either?"