May 5th through 7th. In the early hours of the morning between the walls of perception.
As those under the roof of Ted and Kara one by one fell under the soft shadow of the night's shroud, my fear of sleeping kept me vigilant, and I once again wandered the halls in the late hours, an intruder and a witness to the spirits that lingered in the walls and above my head. I was joined in company by Juneau and Nellie, who, unaffected by my presence, darted to and fro gathering letters from others' dreams. Winston lay slumped in the corner of the couch and watched, the late years of his life weighing on him as did the weariness of desired slumber on his body. Reu was beyond any of us, on the other side, but her body lay soft and still in the sleep of her cage. She was joined by Ted and Kara and Sam as well. Each warm breath shuffled across the ceilings of the house to meet each other, but they were each out of reach, and their dreams remained separate and lonely.
The moments that I existed, living in this state between the walls of perception, were intermittent. I was lulled here by the day itself and only for a little while before the night finally claimed me. The fear I felt falling asleep was the same I feared in death, and I fought it with every last muscle in my body, its hooks digging in my skin. I was afraid of the spirits that might exist on the other side of the wall; I saw them now, but only on the boundaries of my eye. Juneau and Nellie saw them too, and Winston as well, although he would never admit it to me. The blanket of sleep twirled in my pupils and my eyelids dragged. I tried in vain to claw my mind out of that delirious state. And I was afraid, more afraid that those spirits were only flecks on my brain. And in the waking hours, I was afraid that I couldn't recall at all how I had fallen asleep. How clearly I could measure the hours I was gone by the minutes marked on my phone, knowing that I could barely perceive them in those periods of anesthesia.
The children of the lion took pity on me and in the early hours of the morning they awoke me. I felt the nustle of Winston's soft wet nose on my forehead followed shortly by the flick of his tail as he circled my frame. He was asking to leave my cell and carry out his final parcels before the morning birds began their dawn chorus. I arose from the bed and opened my door, and the elderly cat sauntered out into the dark hallway. I sat on the soft carpet floor and gazed at the shuttered window as the neon glow of the early light seeped under the blinds and around the edges of its frame. I peered outside and saw my car parked against the curb of the street, the overhanging light radiating on its foggy windshields. In the sharp cold air of the morning, among the cascading calls of the finches, I saw more clearly than I did on the other side of the wall, and more clearly than I ever would in the waking world.
