Advent: Tenth Note: This the tenth part of a twenty-four part series running through December 24th. To read the previous installments in a convenient form, go here. In a Westin outside Oklahoma City sleep two boys, young men, really. One of them has his arms around the waist of the other and between their legs lies a small ink black dog. The standard issue hotel bedding covers them like a heavy tapestry, momentarily weighing them down in absolute stillness. Even their breathing chests can't be noticed through layers of polyfill, teflon coated blanketing. They are practitioners of this sleep: both have at found themselves awake at night staring at the other fast asleep and carefully planned how to position his body with his. For a long time, they had it almost perfect, their sleep. One would begin the night with his head placed on the chest of the other, for this was the only cure for insomnia he had ever known and then, in half-sleep they would rearrange each other so that the boy who's head lay on the other's chest would then repay the favor by holding the other boy tight, arms wrapped fully around like a seatbelt for the wild Snap the Whip and Dodgem dreams he would have. This is not to say that they had completely worked out a perfect system, by any means. One boy liked to hike his leg up over the other, an extension of how he had slept when he was alone and a nineteen year habit was hard to break. This drove the other boy insane, for the other boy hated to be restrained in any way at all, but the other boy also knew he snored. Loudly. Whole symphonies, in fact, long deep resonant percussive bison calls. Early on, this had led to the other boy punching him, for that boy used to hate sleep with anyone in his bed. In fact, he could barely stand someone being in his bed for more than a moment, it required all his effort not to push the other person out of the bed, but somehow, we'll call this "somehow", "love"- somehow, this had faded over weeks and months. Now one boy would allow the other to put his leg over his chest for a minute or two and the other had taken to silently shifting the other when the goat bleating snores came on and though every time it would startle the other, he would quickly fall back asleep, often with no more than a whispered "What?", but not really needing any answer. Since the road began, none of these conscious efforts had been needed in their sleep. They simply just did it. Had they finally gotten it right or were they just simply too exhausted to think about where hand and skin belonged in their elaborate sleep? The puppy, as ever, slept fitfully and in the morning, did something she would never tell anyone she did- She sat for a moment and watched the two boys sleep. She sat perfectly, like she had been taught and she watched for as long as she could, fighting against her limited attention span, but when it finally took over, she jumped on them, pouncing them to life.

posted by Japhy at 12/09/2002 09:00:00 PM || #