Past the Paralysis

So while I'm feeling better and I'm mulling over my project, here is one more post for the night.

Yesterday I worked on my computer. Slowly and painfully. I really need to get better at these programs, even as simple as SketchUp.

I gave up after a while because I'd been tired all day, despite catching a few hours of sleep (obviously not enough). I fell asleep around 11 and woke up around 12:30. Worked for a little bit and passed out again, with my arms feeling numb and my legs feeling like I'd been walking all day..... woke up around 4am, worked until 6:30, and gave up for the rest of the night/morning.

Thank God I didn't have to go to work, because I wouldn't have been able to go back to sleep.

So there I was in my bed with my laptop (I wasn't worried about it falling off my bed - I don't move at night when I'm so exhausted), books and papers all around me, half in my pajamas and half in the clothes I'd been wearing all day, with my glasses on my desk and my phone in my hand. I didn't even set my alarm for 10am before I started to lose consciousness.

I was in sleep paralysis mode already and I didn't notice until I heard scratching at my door. I couldn't move. Mere inches of solid mass separated me from something terrifying.

- What is that.....

The scratching grew louder and slightly clearer, as if it passed through the door. I imagined the shadow of a claw slipping underneath the door and turning itself right-side-up.

- Oh, that..... Okay...

I'm so used to creepy, strange noises in my fits of delirium that I wasn't so much phased by this as I was actually trying to study myself....

- And now, I bet.....

Shivers! Up and down my spine, then spreading throughout my entire body -- everywhere! Shivers! ....I felt like I was dying, as this shadow continued to seep into my room filled with light that I hadn't cared to turn off. But I knew it was coming, after all. The Shivers of sleep paralysis are the closest thing I can relate to Death... It feels like seconds, but those seconds are comprised of minutes. Time doesn't make sense.

So I let my body suffer from it while I held on to my awareness. It was fading fast, and I struggled to hang on. It's difficult to do, and tiring in a different way. With my body asleep, my mental exhaustion began to take on a physical sense...still, it wasn't quite the same. It seemed worse.

But I did it. I passed through the first window that always closes before me.

What happened next was completely new to me, after years of trying to get there.

The scratching changed, ever so slightly. The shadow dispersed and faded into the vent, the corners, and cracks.

The scratching turned into a printing machine's voice..

I only saw what was before me -- my hand holding my phone, my room filled with light, my blanket around me... but I heard someone picking up papers from the printer and tapping them on a hard surface to straighten them out.

- What do I do..? ..... .. . . .. Hey.......... .. . . .. hey... . . .. "Hey."

It's all I could do. But it was enough. The woman holding the stack of papers stood still, listening like a deer. I spoke to her and she heard me.

"Hey," I said again.

"What is that? ... Is she talking to me?" I heard her muffled voice, still forming in my head.

And another voice said, "Shh--" but I recognized him already.

"Don't talk, just listen," said Alex.

"But what did she say?"
"Shh!"

I tried to say something else, but the words didn't come out. I couldn't think, so I only repeated myself. This time, it came out in the wrong world.

"Hey," I said to nobody in my room. I could tell the difference. It obviously wasn't in my head that I heard it that time.

Stay still, I told myself. Just a couple of minutes and I'll be back again..

The printing resumed. I tried to talk. But the window closed, and I fell asleep.