The mind’s darkest hour

The simple truth of things is that bad dreams are far better than bad wakings

– Stephen King, author

I always get sleep paralysis whenever I’m running a high fever — complete with hallucinations and zero control over my body.

It feels like I’m covered in needles, with a core burning sensation that overwhelms me.

This happened again on Tuesday night after a long day at work.

I was a mess — cold, sweaty, and tingling, with a weird pulsing weakness.

I was so wiped I couldn’t even make it upstairs; I just crashed on the living room couch.

Time, scientifically speaking, ceased to exist that night.

I can’t recall everything, but I won’t try to mimic Irish novelist James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939) here.

I’ll keep the dream descriptions simple instead.

As I lay there, I heard loud, booming voices speaking in a language I couldn’t understand (probably just gibberish).

I thought my eyes were already open. I wasn’t quite sure though.

Fear just washed over me.

The next thing I knew, my alarm buzzed loudly at its usual time: noon.

Panic set in immediately.

I reached for the alarm without looking and threw it across the room.

Unfortunately, my alarm clock is also my phone.

The midday sun streamed in through the curtain and attacked my eyes.

The laughter of carefree children at lunch, drifting over from the Tunku Putra HELP, a private school across my house, made me want to punch myself in the face.

I curled under my covers, pretending it was a womb.

One voice in my head said, “Don’t get out of bed, it isn’t worth it.”

Another said, “Do you know what’s out there? Everyone is after you.”

A third said, “They will eventually get you, they all want you dead.”

Eventually, I emerged from under my makeshift cocoon to search for my phone.

I looked at it.

It was already 2. My mind had kept me captive in bed for two hours.

There were fourteen missed calls from my wife, Jillian, and a long list of WhatsApp messages urging me to call her.

The mess on my couch — jeans, a shirt, a sweater, and the printed pages of my class assignment — stared back at me.

Another voice bloomed in my head: Did you read over your paper? You shouldn’t hand it in, it isn’t any good.

I reached for the pages — the black blocked shapes floated off the white surface.

I focused on the words and tried to make them stop swirling with my eyes, like a comic book superhero with the power of telekinesis.

I repeated in my head. “It’s only 2 pm. You’ve finished the paper. Your class is at 6. It’s only a 30-minute trip. You have plenty of time.”

Then, I cranked up some intense tunes on my iMac — my get-ready playlist, Slipknot, and System Of A Down blasting through the speakers.

In the bathroom, I gazed at my reflection in the mirror: a fair-skinned male, with high cheekbones and dark coffee-brown wavy hair with Technicolour tips.

“Who are you?” I asked the figure in the mirror, the one I called the mirror man.

“Are you the ghost of my future?” His lips stayed still.

The voices grew louder, faster. Then, a rush of anger seized me. I noticed a glimmer of Jillian’s lipstick tube on the shelf nailed to the wall. I opened it and wrote “UGLY” in big bold letters on the mirror and gawked at the word as though it were written by a prophet or maybe God himself.

As if on cue, ‘Duality’ got cut off by the shrill ring of a Zoom call.

It was Jillian. She asked if I’d taken my meds.

I sighed, dragging myself up from the chair.

Tossing a couple of pills into my mouth, I washed them down with some lukewarm coffee from my spotless white mug.

Then, came the question I dreaded.  “How are you doing?”

Silence hung between us. I didn’t have an answer.

“What’s wrong?” she pressed.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled.

“Calm down, you just breathe,” she urged.

I did as she said, and it helped—if only a little.

“What time’s your calculus class?” she asked next.

“Six,” I replied, my voice still heavy.

She reassured me that everything would be okay, that I was strong and capable of jumping over the hurdles of my fever.

She said it calmly as though she were a bored sports commentator reviewing a track meet.

It was second nature for her to fill me with the confidence to win my day.

Time to go.

Fully dressed in my standard all-black — jeans, oversized cable knit sweater, full-face helmet, gloves, and bandana — I began to sweat.

Where were my keys? One voice told me I had them in my pocket, the other swore they were under my bed.

I searched my bag, and there were my keys. I plopped down on the couch to catch my breath. I needed a moment.

As I stepped outside and locked the door, my eyes landed on my Yamaha MT-09 resting in the shade of the yellow Bucida tree.

The voices fought one another over whose fault it would be if I got pulled over by the cops, crushed by a truck, or—worst of all—stared at.

I hopped on the bike and raised the volume on my earphones.

Freddie Mercury’s voice from “Bohemian Rhapsody” ravaged my ears as I roared down the street.

Every driver turned to stare—maybe because of the thunderous Yoshimura R55 exhaust, or perhaps something else.

Either way, my heart was racing.

At that exact moment, I tried to wake up but no matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t move a single muscle.

Desperate to yell for help, I found myself frustratingly mute.

In the next room, my mother-in-law was lost in a P. Ramlee flick, oblivious.

Once the dream released its grip, I lunged for my phone. No messages. Not even a missed call. The clock showed 11.16 pm.

Staggering to her room, I barely made it to the bathroom before I threw up.

Afterward, I slumped against the wall, blankly staring for what seemed like hours.

Exhaustion overtook me and I collapsed at the foot of her bed, out cold.

In the morning, she nudged me awake, confused, and asked why I was sleeping on the floor.

I rubbed my throbbing head, fumbling for the right words to explain what had just happened.

“The living room… too cold,” I muttered.

The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.