The World Disappears When I Close My Eyes
The world disappears when I close my eyes. All of it, even the silence of outer space. Nothing exists anymore once I shut my eyelids down. I’m not sure where it all goes, but I’ve learned to shove those questions away. Hands in front of my face, a blindfold, staring into the darkness… the world will still go on. I close my eyes, however, and I am the last entity in existence. (Well, as far as I can tell. All movement, smell, and sound stops. All pressure is gone. The only sense I have left is my sense of self, but I could be missing stars and galaxies floating around me unseen.)
I’ve blinked the world in and out for about as long as I know. My mothers say I never slept through the night as a baby—that I always screamed every few seconds the first few weeks of my life. They don’t know. I tried to tell them once, but they didn’t quite understand. They thought I was afraid of the dark at first, but then as the conversation went on, they started to believe I was hallucinating. I’d like to blame my ten-year-old self’s communication skills, but I doubt it would have happened any other way.
I began going to a counselor, which, while she was treating me for all the known and logical illnesses she could think of, was a godsend in the long run. Ms. Nakahara became a really good friend over the years, and I still send her emails and cards to let her know I’m fine. She sends some back, which lets me know she still exists. I wonder sometimes if whenever I close my eyes, the universe isn’t shifting, and one time I’ll see a new world, one that’s alien to me and yet close enough that I can’t quite put my finger on what’s different for awhile. Or ever.
Everyone who meets me naturally says I look sick. “Have you been getting enough sleep?” I’ve laughed callously enough at that it’s disturbed people enough to edge away from me and find an excuse to slink off to speak to the bright-eyed students who lace their snark with friendly ribbing. I am long too tired to care.
One day, I collapse on the steps of my townhouse, or so I’m told I did afterwards. I returned to the world in a panic, surrounded by a ring of people. One or two of my neighbors, but mostly strangers who had been passing by. The kindest had rolled me onto my side in case I was seizing. She may have gone away thinking I had epilepsy anyway because I’d awoken gasping and incoherent, struggling to speak but garbling my words into more nonsense than usual.
Something was there. With me.
As soon as I regain my bearings, I thank the woman for helping me and hurry into my home. The onlookers hang around for a bit longer, gossiping among themselves about what my problem is, the neighbors supplying them with rumors, but eventually they shuffle away. I rush up to my room and lock myself in. I curl into a small ball in the corner of my closet and try to calm myself down. I must have imagined it. I’ve gone my entire life feeling nothing when I close my eyes. I’m tired. My mind is finally collapsing into itself, and I will surely be dead soon—and probably after that, so will everyone else.
I spend the entire night alternating between daring myself to close my eyes again, and scaring myself out of the idea. I shake so much that I make myself sick, but I don’t move. The sour smell and the gross heat from the puddle keep me grounded enough that I am finally calm again when the morning birds start singing.
The next day goes on plainly. I clean up. I make my way to my first job, then go to my appointment with Dr. Nakahara. She asks me the requisite, “Have you been able to sleep?” question, and then we talk about anything else when I answer, “No, I’m sorry.” Her oldest son has just gotten married to a wonderful woman, she tells me, and they’re moving to her home in France.
(I wrack my memories for a few seconds, trying to make sure I have always known about him, and finally I can recall her being absent for a few months years ago because she’d had him. I make myself satisfied with that before I start wondering if he had always been “he” or if I was finally seeing the shifts occur.)
Dr. Nakahara nearly cries as she says how proud of him she is. He’s healthy. He’ll live a long time, I suppose, as long as I stay awake. I grit my teeth together before saying that out loud. Dr. Nakahara notices me twitch, however, and the conversation changes. The rest is just small talk and light topics for the rest of the hour. As I go to shake her hand and give her a hug before I leave, however, she quickly pulls me close and breathes a quick puff of air into my eyes. I blink on instinct.
The best way I know how to describe when I close my eyes may be a feeling like the muffled sounds heard when you’re floating underwater, but with the ringing of tinnitus simultaneously clear as can be. This, all flatly humming through my body. I cannot breathe or smell, so I am half-choked. I cannot move to feel anything that may be beside me. My mouth can open, but no sound comes out, and I more know my mouth has opened rather than feel my jaw hinging. When I was young and tried to describe this to my mothers, they smiled and told me, “No one can feel their bodies in dreams. In dreams, you always simply know things even if you can’t do them in real life.” I’d once considered that perhaps I’d been an idiot all along and was just dreaming this every time, but I’ve also been told that no one dreams only one thing. If I hadn’t known better, then I would consider this time just a variation of the dream.
It’s there again. It swirls and flattens itself in front of and around me. It is cold. Cold enough to burn. I try to gasp, anything, but my chest is still too heavy and still. But then it stops moving, and I feel it land or hover or just stay in front of me. It’s closer. I feel the chill coming of it bite through my nosetip. (Do I bleed when I’m here?)
The cold edges closer and closer until two soft, freezing points touch my eyes. Make them so raw I nearly open them just to stop everything. But then, there’s a sigh. A desperate, half-hearted giggle. I know that sound. I once had a friend who seemed to take my… condition seriously. He would talk with me throughout the night every so often. Really he would question me, and after he got bored, he would resort to making up his own theories about it. “I wrote a poem about it,” he said one day. Maybe it was a beautiful poem, but I couldn’t see it. I was polite, though, and laughed appreciatively as I always did with him. I don’t remember what happened to him; maybe I shifted the world and he disappeared. I am not disturbed by that as much as I think I should be.
I hear another giggle, more subdued. The icy touch moves away from my eyes and encircles me in a harsh grip. More of it presses along my body, and a small flurry of breezes startle my ear. It’s a few seconds before I can make out the whispers of, “I’m not alone,” and “You’re not alone,” and “We are not alone,” repeated over and over again. The grip tightens, forcing a long-denied breath from me. Burning hot tears form in my eyes.
We stay like that for what feels like ten thousand years. Maybe it is. Maybe ten seconds or ten million mellenia. I’ve never been able to keep track of time here where nothing has been until now. For however long we are there, embracing, I feel the most peaceful and relaxed. The other keeps saying, “We are not alone,” the whole time, until they shudder, crystals jabbing into me, and they say, “I must go.”
I had considered for a moment never opening my eyes again. But the other is right, and we part. The sting of a cold point lingers a few moments longer. We will meet again. There’s no way couldn’t. I can’t feel any cold anymore. I open my eyes.
Dr. Nakahara catches me as I stumble, disoriented. She looks over me and asks me if I’m all right. I assure her I’m fine. She apologizes, saying that she knew that was gross. It was wrong and a terrible idea, but she had run out of ways to try and help me. I pull her into a tight embrace and assure her it’s nothing. I’m fine. For once I may even believe what I say. When we part, she has an odd look on her face, but that may be because I have one on mine. (Has she ever seen me genuinely smile before?) We make another appointment for next week, and I head to my second job.
When I arrive home again, I eat, climb the stairs to my room, and then lay on my bed. I stare up at the ceiling, thinking I can make it through this night, even if I will actually never miss a moment of it. I breathe deeply, and let my eyelids fall. It is only moments before I feel that coldness again.
I’ve blinked the world in and out for about as long as I know. My mothers say I never slept through the night as a baby—that I always screamed every few seconds the first few weeks of my life. They don’t know. I tried to tell them once, but they didn’t quite understand. They thought I was afraid of the dark at first, but then as the conversation went on, they started to believe I was hallucinating. I’d like to blame my ten-year-old self’s communication skills, but I doubt it would have happened any other way.
I began going to a counselor, which, while she was treating me for all the known and logical illnesses she could think of, was a godsend in the long run. Ms. Nakahara became a really good friend over the years, and I still send her emails and cards to let her know I’m fine. She sends some back, which lets me know she still exists. I wonder sometimes if whenever I close my eyes, the universe isn’t shifting, and one time I’ll see a new world, one that’s alien to me and yet close enough that I can’t quite put my finger on what’s different for awhile. Or ever.
Everyone who meets me naturally says I look sick. “Have you been getting enough sleep?” I’ve laughed callously enough at that it’s disturbed people enough to edge away from me and find an excuse to slink off to speak to the bright-eyed students who lace their snark with friendly ribbing. I am long too tired to care.
One day, I collapse on the steps of my townhouse, or so I’m told I did afterwards. I returned to the world in a panic, surrounded by a ring of people. One or two of my neighbors, but mostly strangers who had been passing by. The kindest had rolled me onto my side in case I was seizing. She may have gone away thinking I had epilepsy anyway because I’d awoken gasping and incoherent, struggling to speak but garbling my words into more nonsense than usual.
Something was there. With me.
As soon as I regain my bearings, I thank the woman for helping me and hurry into my home. The onlookers hang around for a bit longer, gossiping among themselves about what my problem is, the neighbors supplying them with rumors, but eventually they shuffle away. I rush up to my room and lock myself in. I curl into a small ball in the corner of my closet and try to calm myself down. I must have imagined it. I’ve gone my entire life feeling nothing when I close my eyes. I’m tired. My mind is finally collapsing into itself, and I will surely be dead soon—and probably after that, so will everyone else.
I spend the entire night alternating between daring myself to close my eyes again, and scaring myself out of the idea. I shake so much that I make myself sick, but I don’t move. The sour smell and the gross heat from the puddle keep me grounded enough that I am finally calm again when the morning birds start singing.
The next day goes on plainly. I clean up. I make my way to my first job, then go to my appointment with Dr. Nakahara. She asks me the requisite, “Have you been able to sleep?” question, and then we talk about anything else when I answer, “No, I’m sorry.” Her oldest son has just gotten married to a wonderful woman, she tells me, and they’re moving to her home in France.
(I wrack my memories for a few seconds, trying to make sure I have always known about him, and finally I can recall her being absent for a few months years ago because she’d had him. I make myself satisfied with that before I start wondering if he had always been “he” or if I was finally seeing the shifts occur.)
Dr. Nakahara nearly cries as she says how proud of him she is. He’s healthy. He’ll live a long time, I suppose, as long as I stay awake. I grit my teeth together before saying that out loud. Dr. Nakahara notices me twitch, however, and the conversation changes. The rest is just small talk and light topics for the rest of the hour. As I go to shake her hand and give her a hug before I leave, however, she quickly pulls me close and breathes a quick puff of air into my eyes. I blink on instinct.
The best way I know how to describe when I close my eyes may be a feeling like the muffled sounds heard when you’re floating underwater, but with the ringing of tinnitus simultaneously clear as can be. This, all flatly humming through my body. I cannot breathe or smell, so I am half-choked. I cannot move to feel anything that may be beside me. My mouth can open, but no sound comes out, and I more know my mouth has opened rather than feel my jaw hinging. When I was young and tried to describe this to my mothers, they smiled and told me, “No one can feel their bodies in dreams. In dreams, you always simply know things even if you can’t do them in real life.” I’d once considered that perhaps I’d been an idiot all along and was just dreaming this every time, but I’ve also been told that no one dreams only one thing. If I hadn’t known better, then I would consider this time just a variation of the dream.
It’s there again. It swirls and flattens itself in front of and around me. It is cold. Cold enough to burn. I try to gasp, anything, but my chest is still too heavy and still. But then it stops moving, and I feel it land or hover or just stay in front of me. It’s closer. I feel the chill coming of it bite through my nosetip. (Do I bleed when I’m here?)
The cold edges closer and closer until two soft, freezing points touch my eyes. Make them so raw I nearly open them just to stop everything. But then, there’s a sigh. A desperate, half-hearted giggle. I know that sound. I once had a friend who seemed to take my… condition seriously. He would talk with me throughout the night every so often. Really he would question me, and after he got bored, he would resort to making up his own theories about it. “I wrote a poem about it,” he said one day. Maybe it was a beautiful poem, but I couldn’t see it. I was polite, though, and laughed appreciatively as I always did with him. I don’t remember what happened to him; maybe I shifted the world and he disappeared. I am not disturbed by that as much as I think I should be.
I hear another giggle, more subdued. The icy touch moves away from my eyes and encircles me in a harsh grip. More of it presses along my body, and a small flurry of breezes startle my ear. It’s a few seconds before I can make out the whispers of, “I’m not alone,” and “You’re not alone,” and “We are not alone,” repeated over and over again. The grip tightens, forcing a long-denied breath from me. Burning hot tears form in my eyes.
We stay like that for what feels like ten thousand years. Maybe it is. Maybe ten seconds or ten million mellenia. I’ve never been able to keep track of time here where nothing has been until now. For however long we are there, embracing, I feel the most peaceful and relaxed. The other keeps saying, “We are not alone,” the whole time, until they shudder, crystals jabbing into me, and they say, “I must go.”
I had considered for a moment never opening my eyes again. But the other is right, and we part. The sting of a cold point lingers a few moments longer. We will meet again. There’s no way couldn’t. I can’t feel any cold anymore. I open my eyes.
Dr. Nakahara catches me as I stumble, disoriented. She looks over me and asks me if I’m all right. I assure her I’m fine. She apologizes, saying that she knew that was gross. It was wrong and a terrible idea, but she had run out of ways to try and help me. I pull her into a tight embrace and assure her it’s nothing. I’m fine. For once I may even believe what I say. When we part, she has an odd look on her face, but that may be because I have one on mine. (Has she ever seen me genuinely smile before?) We make another appointment for next week, and I head to my second job.
When I arrive home again, I eat, climb the stairs to my room, and then lay on my bed. I stare up at the ceiling, thinking I can make it through this night, even if I will actually never miss a moment of it. I breathe deeply, and let my eyelids fall. It is only moments before I feel that coldness again.