The dried poppy pods arranged above my head are an extended invitation, and I wonder why my guest is tardy. I sit on my jittering hands and focus on ragged inhales and exhales. It is 6 a.m., seven hours since my incantation. The moon has shaken hands with the sun, yet Sleep has not arrived. I sit upright in bed and watch shadows drape over furniture like the women in black and white movies, awaiting the day’s kiss. A taunting sliver of indigo light slithers between my unshuttered blackout curtains, but it is not enough to kill the dark. I leave my bedside lamp off, fearing the glow might be unwelcoming.

Tinny harp music chimes, and the thought of work slouches into my addled brain. I am in no state to silence the susurrus of middle school minds; for once, I have an excuse to force myself to pause. I stop the phone’s alarm and switch off Do Not Disturb, and the submerged texts breach the surface. Forsaken friendships crowd my screen, each bleep demanding attention.

2:00 AM: Hey. Can’t sleep. Our last bonfire is on my mind, proclaims an old high school boyfriend who sometimes messages me when lonely.

2:15 AM: Hey Selena! How are you doing these days? Remember when we pulled doubles at Tim’s and people-watched? asks a former co-worker from a coffee shop job I held three years ago.

2:30 AM: Selena! We need a shopping date, for old times’ sake, offers a childhood best friend who I discarded so long ago I am surprised she texts me. I miss her, but not enough to squeeze her into my leftover moments.

My eyes widen as the phone chugs from the overflow of texts, and I let it drop into my lap. The fuck?

“What’s the news?” I charge my virtual assistant, and the white sphere on my night table blares to life. The anchor’s voice is louder than necessary, even after I lower the volume.

“Roughly one percent of the capital has not slept. An influx of patients with sudden insomnia has overwhelmed hospitals and clinics.”

My tense giggle deepens into a sob: the joke is Ottawa is the city fun forgot.

The nation’s capital is a government city that behaves like an overgrown town. Most businesses close promptly at 6 p.m. on the weekends, and come nightfall, we eagerly tuck ourselves into bed. I have shaken up its doldrums identity: it is now the city sleep forgot.

The anchor’s words bleed into one another, a melancholic guttural lament starting in my ears and lodging in my belly. I tell the sphere to stop playing the news and knead my sternum. Fuck. I meant this only for myself. My vigil is more imperative now; I must fix my mistake.

“I called you–why bother others?” is the bait I slip into the black.

Opposite my double bed, a dark-haired head bobs into focus.

My heartbeat’s rata-ta-ta is a resounding tattoo in the quiet.

The being is at eye level and frozen in place, its thick hair tumbling to its shoulders.

“Hello?”

Its mouth moves as mine does, tracing my words with cracked lips, and when it stops talking, it smiles.

It is my reflection in the large mirror of my oaken bureau, but I do not feel the smile when I press my fingers to my lips.

*     *     *
I can subsist on very little sleep, but this is the first time I have had none. The terrors of failure often chew on my repose. I used to try melatonin, moved my bedroom TV downstairs, and invested in mood lighting. Drinking warm milk was a nighttime ritual. Doomscrolling until my eyes would close, I would pour through social media, news articles, and any bullshit to busy my brain. A nibble of movie listicles here, a gulp of celebrity gossip there. The dregs of a fitful hour helped me survive each day.

Cocooning the daisy-printed bedsheets tighter to myself, I cackle. I am like the self-important middle-aged ladies in department stores, argumentative and immovable until a manager appears. Or I am like the early suffragettes, handcuffing myself to railings–doing something worthwhile. I am twenty-three, too old to be daddy’s girl, but I still cannot shake my father’s firm belief that if you aren’t doing something constructive, you aren’t doing anything. He was also a teacher.

The dismal da-da-dum from the news bulletin still wriggles in my brain, so I scroll through the torrent of texts, still cropping up.

2:45 AM: Hi Selena! Can I borrow your fun context clues lesson from last year? I need it, requests the co-teacher I shared my classroom with. Nice, but needy. I could never say no to him.

3:00 AM: Quick question. Could you share the delish brownie recipe from the last neighbourhood potluck? asks a woman I hardly speak with from three houses down. If I hadn’t worried about the optics of a pillar of the community missing an event, she wouldn’t have my number.

3:15 AM: I miss you, Selena. It was never you, and it was all me. I’ve been working on myself, and I need to see you, conspires a man who depleted me. Kicking him out of my apartment a month ago took a lot of strength.

It is strange to hear from connections I allowed to deteriorate. I keep my social circle tiny, only ever calling my dad to discuss the daily goings-on in my classroom, so my tight schedule cannot disappoint people.

My hours are thick with planning, grading, emailing, and running extracurricular activities like book club and homework help. I never complain, knowing admitting weakness is a strike against me, each action completed with a bedaubed smile. What right do I have to anger? Didn’t I cultivate this life for myself? I have to do more to become more.

There are twenty missed calls, too. I ignore them, worrying about what my principal or co-workers might think if they hear my unpolished voice. How could I explain my actions? For once, I cannot window-dress my unease with a nervous grin. I can only answer unrehearsed phone calls or talk to strangers when I assume my camouflage. I examine my chewed nails, knowing they will read my reticence as inattention or laziness. It is contrary to the curated persona that can handle anything. But I am relieved, unfettered from expectations filtering through my phone. It is nice to pretend students are not asking about due dates, parents are not accusing me of unfair grading, or the administration is not declaring my work insufficient.

Tears skim my cheeks, loosening the crusty rheum in the corners of my eyes. I hate that I find relief in the in-between; this is my golden mean.

*     *     *
The walls shiver with life, a palpable tremble that has escaped from my bones.

Warmth has abandoned me, leaking from my body and venturing back into the world of the living.

It has been twelve hours since I last closed my eyes, and I wonder if Sleep is an angry demon hoarding dreams, stuffing fistfuls of slumber in his maw. Or does he lap at the sweet fantasies, savouring each lick? Maybe he gnashes his teeth through the bitter ones, holding his nose through quick bites?

Goose bumps flourish on my arms and legs, and the sorrowful music from the news plays with full force. Ethereal cries rise and fall around me, and I beg my virtual assistant to stop playing the song.

“Sorry, but I do not understand your request.”

Will Sleep ever come?

A week ago, I googled “home remedies for sleep” and discovered the potency of dried flowers.

Last night, I petitioned for rest.

As the night dwindled, I realized I had to inverse the problem to solve it.

Sleep was a time sink, an obstacle to self-achievement. If I could shrug it off without consequence, I could be more. I didn’t know I would cause a sleeping drought.

Please let everyone be okay.

Please let Daddy be okay.

Calling him is impossible; he would frown through the phone and remind me I may have book smarts, but I don’t have common sense.

*     *     *
When the sixteenth hour of sleeplessness arrives, I count it as another shifted bead on an abacus. The song has intensified, building into a cacophony of wails and shrieks. My eyes are arid and empty, making space for the headache creeping in behind them. Gnawing hunger is now a yawn, and I have embraced the grubbiness settling in every crevice.

I have leached time from the city, stolen repose from the dusty relationships I tried to protect by setting them on a shelf.

Did they reach out because they miss me or because those drowning clutch for whoever flounders with them?

I must fool nobody.

Fists clenching, my stomach roiling, I am decided. Collecting hours is easier than negotiating a return to life.

I can’t go back.

*     *     *
After twenty-four hours, I am on my back, staring at the dried poppy pods I taped to the stucco ceiling. I connect the paint globs with my mind’s eye. Once the pattern snaps into focus, it is so easy: I am making a wormhole. The walls quake, and the strip of light from the outside world flashes between black and yellow. The sun and moon are beyond handshakes; they quarrel over my scraps.

There!

A hand with long, skinny fingers extends from the darkened hole in my ceiling. We are beyond introductions.

The second hand emerges. Long white hair cascades from the blackness, obscuring the thing’s face and tickling the tip of my nose.

Wasn’t Sleep supposed to be a Mister Sandman?

The creature flattens her palms on either side of the wormhole, bracing the dotted ceiling. Her branch-like arms open for an embrace, her vulturine nails click, click, clicking against flaking paint. She is laughing at me, a raspy, echoing screech that reminds me of an owl.

I understand now. I am plump for devouring, succulent from the steady broil of prolonged anguish over my people, over one million unknown people.

My voice, rusted to my throat, cannot hit the higher notes of the dirge that has followed me since the early hours. It is a chorale sung by beggars, faded spectres of the highly strung, and I recognize I was never the petitioner. They surround me, and the electric tingles of their souls brush against my fingers and push me higher.

I push myself up from bed and onto my knees, my thighs shaking, my heart hammering.

Threading my fingers into her claws, I clasp hard, impatient for surrender.