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Us Sleep-Walking
and The Art of Manipulation Maturation
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Sleepwalking
and the Art of Manipulation It must’ve started with "Can Mandy sleep with me?" But I can hardly remember a time, at least in our early years, when my little sister and I didn’t share a bed. A deep-rooted fear of the darkness, coupled with uneasiness at the prospect of being alone, left me wide-eyed and shaking, hanging one gawky leg over the mattress in case there might be any cause for me to jump out of bed and tear down the hall to my parents room in a hurry. And if Mandy didn’t sleep with me, I almost always found myself there, shaken and breathless in the sanctuary of mom and dad’s bedroom. Mom and Dad thought it was a wonderful idea: Mandy and I could sleep together! Of course, my independent little sister didn’t always want to share a bed with me; there were many times when she decided that she wanted a bed to herself. She was the most happy-go-lucky kid that I knew, and all of the adults raved over her chubby little cheeks and perfect eyebrows, but my sister had a solitary nature. I remember calling her "the loner." Many of my nights were spent coaxing her into sleeping with me, whether by means of sticky sweetness, coercion, threatened severance of communication, or sheer force (she is almost four years younger than me). One of the most popular methods of assuring her company was quite the easiest: I just promised to tell her a story. My sister loved any type of entertainment, and entertainment was something that I could provide. Whenever mother declared that it was bedtime, my sister and I raced to the king size bed in the guest room (I always won the race), where I would perform a running somersault from the floor, landing on the bed. Mandy always attempted the somersault, but her short little legs couldn’t quite give her the momentum she needed to propel her lower half over her head. She always ended up in a clumsy heap on the soft, floral sheets of the bed, and mom followed right behind us, reminding us that we shouldn’t do somersaults on the furniture. Mom and dad tucked us in every night, my sister always sleeping on the left side, closest to the door, and I scrunched down into the covers on the right side of the bed, next to the wall. "Go to sleep, girls," Mom would say, "I don’t want to hear you in the next room." Her voice was soft, and we replied that okay, we’d go to sleep. As soon as we heard mom and dad shuffling down the hall after turning out the lights, Mandy begged to hear one of Leslye’s Famous Stories. Of course, I’m sure that there were times when she didn’t want to hear one of the stories, but if I happened to be in the mood, I forced one on her. The stories began with a theme song, as if they were episodes to a television series. I began the song in my version of a classically trained voice, the melody was slow and smooth, and the diction was perfect: Leslye’s famous stories, In the midst of my performance, I raised my voice to a screech, mimicking guitar riffs and shreds that would have made Jimi Hindrix proud. After we calmed down from the excitement of the song, I began one of my stories, which were usually about an adolescent with some sort of disability. For example, there was Joey, who was too tall one week and too short the next. I would begin the stories elaborately, giving detailed descriptions of the characters, their lives, their friends at school, but about mid-way through the narratives, I would grow tired and end the story abruptly, usually with no conclusion. For some reason, the lack of closure never seemed to bother Mandy. Some nights we’d stay awake to play I Spy. The fun of it was that the guest bedroom was covered in darkness, so we’d have to remember the colors of everything in the room. Even clothes in the drawers were not off-limits. There was, however, always an end to our fun, and usually it was brought about by Mandy. She’d begin by getting irritable, and then she’d gradually fall asleep during my stories or our games. I’d wear my voice out whispering, "the dresser, the swimsuit in the second drawer, the flower on the jewelry box," only to realize after so many minutes without a "You guessed it!" that she’d gone to sleep. I shook with frustration. I’d wake her up every time she fell asleep, but I learned that it didn’t work. She was always too groggy to comprehend anything that I said. I could fall asleep when I slept with Mandy because I wasn’t alone. It seems that my fears of the dark stemmed from the very solitude of it. Occasionally I ventured to my parents room even when Mandy lay in a pile beside me in the bed, but not often; most of the time I could be comforted by her short, chubby little body. I couldn’t be comforted, however, when she wasn’t there. Although not often, on occasion Mandy became frightened in the dark. Most of the time she’d stumble out of bed long after I’d fallen asleep, and I’d wake up unharmed and unaware of her absence. Most of the time. But there was one night when I did wake up, sort of, to find her gone. We were sleeping in my room instead of the guest bedroom because we were growing up, and we felt like we should be moving down the hall, farther away from mom and dad’s room. I must have had a nightmare. I remember my body jolting from the bed in a panic. I looked over to Mandy’s side of the bed, but she was gone, and I knew that they had all left me. I guess that’s what I was dreaming, that my family had taken off without me, that I was the last one on earth, that I was alone in that big, dark house because as soon as I saw that she wasn’t beside me, I sprang from the bed and ran into the cave of the living room. It felt like I opened my mouth wide. It felt like I screamed for my mother, I must have. But no one came. And the darkness kept closing in. I ran for the front door because I had to get out of that cave. I remember trying to shut the door, but for some reason I couldn’t get it closed. Suddenly, I noticed that there was barking, and I looked down to see my dog’s head in the door. I was in such a daze, I didn’t hear her, and when I realized that her small, black head was wedged between the door and the doorjamb, I simply nudged her back into the house, unable to fully wake up. I made my way down the brown brick steps of my front porch and, with my bare feet, stepped onto the cool concrete of the sidewalk. It must’ve been chilly because I wore only underwear and a long t-shirt, my normal bed-time attire, but I didn’t notice the weather. I only remember deciding which house I should go to. "No, not the Fowler’s," I thought, "they are too old, and I don’t want to disturb them." Shifting my eyes across the street as I walked down Lucyle Lane, I contemplated the Thornton’s house, but decided that Mr. Greg might get upset if I came over so late. I walked down the street this way, considering each house that I passed until finally, about four houses from mine, I decided on the Duck’s house. I’m not sure why I picked their house. Maybe I realized that I was running out of options, maybe I thought that Mr. Duck would be sympathetic. I ambled to the carport door like a zombie and rang the bell repeatedly. After what seemed like an eternity, Mr. Duck, clad in a terry cloth robe, came to the door. "Leslye!" he said with surprise and a hint of fright, "What’s wrong? What are you doing here?" "My parents left me," I mourned, "They’re gone." I must have been a pitiful sight. Mr. Duck told me to come in while he got dressed. He opened the door and shuffled me into the living room. It must have been the clock that woke me up. I remember standing in the living room when the clock chimed. There were two bells. "It’s two," I thought. And then, somehow, I realized the implications and the contest. It was two in the morning. I was standing in the living room of the Ducks' house. I hadn’t even checked in my parents’ room to see if they were there. Which, of course, they were. They wouldn’t leave me. What was I thinking? I waited for Mr. Duck to get dressed, hoping that I wasn’t really standing in his living room, but I knew that I was. He walked in with a flashlight and guided me out of the carport door and down the street, towards my house. "Did you check your parents’ room?" he asked. "No, sir. I didn’t think about it," I replied with my head down, watching my white feet move over the asphalt. We made it to my front porch, and Mr. Duck pushed the glowing button that triggered the doorbell. My father came to the door in his underwear, his pistol in his right hand, pointed toward the ground, and my sister and mother were huddled behind him. "Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!" Mr. Duck pleaded, "I believe I found something you lost." My father, whose gun probably wasn’t even loaded, looked startled and confused: the dog’s barking at my departure had awakened him, and he’d been startled to find the door ajar. When the doorbell rang shortly after his discovered the open door, he must’ve been dumbstruck. Mr. Duck explained that I’d found my way to his house, convinced that my parents had left me. Mom and Dad pulled me into the house, visibly shaken. Mom slept with me that night, and I can’t remember Mandy ever leaving the bed again. She said she left because she got scared, by the way. We all think that I must’ve been asleep when I made my sojourn to the Duck’s house, but I’d never had an episode of sleep-walking before that incident, and I’ve never had one since. Although I’m still a little frightened by the experience, there was one good thing that came from it. Whenever Mandy grew too tired to listen to the stories or play a game of I Spy, whenever she decided that she wanted to sleep in her own bed, I just reminded her of that night and how, if she wouldn’t have left, it never would have happened. It worked every time. |
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