I sleep alone these days, but my bedroom is crowded.  Physically, there’s only me…but in the
pale light cast by my bedside lamp, I see shadows and hear murmurs.  In the dark, forms
emerge and years of longing, hoping and regret begin to chatter.  Memories and dreams
unfulfilled beckon me, indifferent to my state of wakefulness—or lack thereof.
 
Some folks might feel haunted, or even possessed by this invasion.  Not I.  In some ways, I am
lucky to see my life express itself in the relative privacy of my room, late at night while the rest
of the world around me deals with its own dreams, nightmares and premonitions.
 
Lately, my days and evenings ache with emptiness.  The deepest part of night is my
refuge—the place I can reminisce and experience the joys I’ve known, and the people whose
presence painted my heart with happiness.  Sometimes, the joy of yesteryear helps to remind
me how much I need to feel those feelings again.
 
Tonight, as I prepared to enter the theater of my night, the humming around me was so loud
that I couldn’t unlock the door.  At first it was the whoosh and drone of the oxygen
concentrator.  Then I thought it was the shallow, grating sound of a Gilligan’s Island rerun on Nick at Nite…but the fan beside my bed should have buffered that.  Finally, I realized that the annoying sounds were coming from inside my head.  Instantly, I knew that the only way to quiet them was to sit at the keyboard, hands on home row, eyes on the monitor—my brain performing an exorcism.
 
I want to write, and I need to write…but I am unable to focus beyond the point where I
acknowledge the surreal presences in my head filling my bedroom.

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