When I Can't Sleep, I Look at my Phone.

I’m used to working late night shifts, while my girlfriend likes to work during the day. Sometimes when I get home, she’s in bed and waiting for me. Sometimes she’s already asleep. Either way, she’s there. I usually can’t go to sleep right away, but I crawl in to bed anyways and look at my phone. I usually play a game or two, make the rounds on some news sites. For the most part I just read what I can find until I’m tired enough to fall asleep.

I think it would be nice to read a book instead, but the girlfriend is a light sleeper and having a light on would wake her. Every book light I’ve found is too bright, but the phone doesn’t bother her much. Not anymore, at least. I found this app that lets you dim the brightness of your phone even lower than the factory settings would allow for. It’s perfect since she can’t sleep unless the room is damn near pitch black, plus I’m sure it’s better for my eyes. It helps that we both got those fat batteries that extends the life of your phone to last something like 50 hours without needing to charge.

Anyways, the other night I came home from work and she’s asleep. No big deal, I’ll just do some reading until I get tired. Maybe read some cat facts. Whatever I find that’s interesting for the night, I read it. The problem was I never got tired. Not tired enough to fall asleep, at least. I started reading fan theories about my favorite movies. I read some news stories about individuals that went missing under strange circumstances. I read a story about the origins of different breakfast foods. Next thing I know, the girlfriend’s alarm is going off. I didn’t realize I had been awake for so long until it was too late. The room darkening curtains we got to keep the bedroom as light-free as possible work so well, I didn’t even notice that the sun had come up. Sam rolled over and looked at me, blinking away her dreams. “You’re up early.” It was almost a question.

“Up late,” I responded. “I must have lost track of time. You work today, right?”

She groaned out an affirmative while rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “You gonna try to sleep now, I guess?”

“I guess so. Maybe keep the curtains open when you leave so I don’t sleep all day. I don’t want my sleep schedule going back to what it was when I was working third shift.”

“God help us,” she laughed. “You mean cranky at 2pm because you just woke up? No thank you. Get some sleep.”

I set my phone on the night stand and put my head back to the pillows. I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to take me quickly. I could hear Sam getting ready in the bathroom. Running water, clothes being thrown about. A chubby cat meowed loudly for his food, and the girlfriend swore at the smaller cat who liked to dart between legs. I could smell her breakfast cooking and her coffee brewing, and then I heard her leave.

I was still awake. I couldn’t fall asleep. I don’t know why, but I was awake. I was almost wide awake. I don’t remember when, but I just made the conscious decision to try and stay up all day and just crash hard a bit before my normal bed time. I figured that would even me out. I didn’t have to work that day so it was a day full of video games and chasing the cats around the apartment mockingly screaming “You’re an animal!”

When Sam came home, I lied about getting some rest. I don’t really know why. Maybe I didn’t want her to worry. I don’t think it would have helped much anyways if she knew the truth. I could feel myself getting very tired by night time and we both went to bed, excited to get some rest. She was out like a light when her head hit the pillow, and I…

Could not sleep. Son of a bitch. I tossed and turned and meditated and tried every stupid breathing trick I could think of to relax my mind and drift away, but sleep would not take me. So I grabbed my phone to start reading again. As soon as I hit the button on the side, I was blinded by it. I didn’t have the filter turned on. I fumbled for a few moments trying to turn it on and bring down the brightness level.

Just as I found the on screen button, I turned my head towards Sam to make sure the light hadn’t woken her up. She was snoring softly, and the standing lamp in the corner of the room looked extra wide. The screen dimmed before my eyes adjusted to beyond my phone. Our lamp wasn’t fat. What the hell was that? I turned my phone over to shine the weakened light in that direction, but the lamp looked normal. Thin, tall, black. Same crappy lamp we got from Wal-Mart after we moved in to the place.

I kept staring for a few more seconds, just to be sure. Something moved towards the bedroom door. I turned the phone and watched what looked like nearly a foot-long black finger reaching through the crack beneath. Instantly my heart started racing before I noticed this “finger” was fuzzy and was actually a cat’s arm trying to reach through to play. Little Pablo must have heard me moving and thought I was still up and ready to play. Well I was definitely up now. Wide awake.

I tried to calm myself with some reading. The light was playing tricks on my eyes. My mind didn’t jump to ghosts or spirits or any of that. I lived in an apartment building built on a college campus. The building itself wasn’t even older than I was. I found myself a nice story about a dog and a moose that were best friends or some shit and tried to settle myself down. My heart finally stopped racing after a while, but I wasn’t tired anymore.

Every so often I would glance past my phone to the corner where the lamp was standing. It felt like someone was there and was watching me. I knew that it was impossible because the door had never opened, and I’m positive nobody else was in the room. I noticed very quickly that I couldn’t see past the light coming from my phone, even with the brightness turned down as much as it was. The light was shining in my eyes, and my eyes couldn’t see past the light. Every so often I would turn my phone over to shine it against the wall.

Nothing was there. Just the lamp and the edge of my dresser. Every time that it felt like a set of eyes were set upon me, I turned the phone around, and every time I saw nothing. I went to lightly nudge Sam to make sure she was still there, and sure enough her furnace of a body was in place. But it suddenly dawned on me that it was getting harder to turn my phone around each time.

It was a tiny bit of fear that I was going to see something, but it was almost as if someone was holding me down. One arm on each of my shoulders, as if someone’s face was just on the other side of my phone, and peering deep in to my soul, hiding behind the light, but a quick turn of the wrist would show nothing. I was alone, except for Sam, but nothing could shake the feeling that someone or something else was in there with us. And it felt like he or she or it only sought me as late night entertainment.

I was unable to sleep that night either. The sound of Sam’s alarm signaled morning, and I pretended to sleep. If she had touched my phone and felt how warm it was, she would know that I had just set it down. Once again I listened to her getting up. The sound of water, the rustling of clothes. “Silver cat, you’re so fat” in a sing-song melody to the chubby feline.

After I heard the door of the apartment close behind her, I stayed in bed for a while. My eyes scanned the room slowly; looking for some sign or signal to let me know that I wasn’t alone, but the light coming through the window made everything shine normal to my tired eyes. It was going to be another long day, and I hoped like hell I could fall asleep that night because I had to work the next day.

That Sunday was much more of a struggle than the day before. I basically doubled my caffeine intake and hoped it would be enough to get me to crash come nightfall. Sam must have had a rough day at work, or I looked better than I felt because she didn’t comment on my sluggish maneuvering through the apartment. Finally, bedtime came and we lied down, but not before I took a sleeping pill for good measure. I closed my eyes.

I found myself standing in the bedroom. Total darkness filled the room, but I felt like I could see just fine. It was as if a nightlight was turned on and filled the entire space. I don’t know what I was doing standing up instead of lying down. Maybe the pill made me sleepwalk. It’s never happened before, but stranger things have. I took a step towards the bed.

But I was already in bed. I could see myself lying in bed next to Sam. I watched myself toss and turn. It looked at one point like I was meditating. I was looking at myself, but my self in the bed could not see this self. Other me reached for his phone and hit the button on the side. Blinding light struck his face, and there was no question in my mind that it was me. I didn’t know what to do, so I ducked under the foot of the bed. Would other me freak out to see me? Was I dreaming?

I could hear my other self sit up in the bed, and I pressed my face to the carpet, hoping like hell I wouldn’t be seen. That’s when I heard a soft rubbing noise at the door. The light from other me’s phone turned in the same direction, and I could see a fuzzy black cat arm sticking out from under the door. From this level on the floor, I could even see one of Pablo’s cat eyes looking directly at me. From above I heard my bed-self take in a sharp gasp of air. It must have looked to him like a long black finger.

This was the same scenario I had lived through last night, but I was the one in the bed. Was I haunting myself? This didn’t make any sense. I stood up slowly, and peered over the edge of the bed. There I was, reading away on my phone. I tried to remember what it was. Probably some story about a pig and a goat being best friends or some shit. Was this an out of body experience? I leaned on to the bed.

The mattress didn’t bend to my weight. I didn’t feel weightless at all, but my body had made no impression on the cushioning. Even as I put more and more weight on it, neither the bed nor the blanket seemed disturbed. It was then I looked up and saw the phone pointed directly at me. The light was shining directly at my face, and I froze. Just as quick as it was on me, it was turned around again, and my other body went back to reading. I guess I couldn’t see me. I certainly don’t remember seeing myself doing this the night before, so I crept closer. The phone turned around a few more times, but bed-me made no notion that I was noticed.

I reached out a hand and placed it on the other me. I pressed it down on to his shoulder, and since he or I didn’t budge, I did the same thing to his other shoulder. I put all of my weight down against myself and was holding my body up over myself. My face was merely inches away from the back side of my phone when other me turned the phone again. It had almost touched my chin, but again it turned back to face him.

I climbed off of myself and just stared. Why is this happening? What even IS happening? Is this just a vivid dream? The rest of the night I spent pacing the room, questioning these questions with no answer. Nothing much of note happened that I could remember, because the next thing I knew, I was waking up in bed. The memories of the rest of the night I got to watch myself slipped away like most dreams do.

I’m currently just chalking it up to a bizarre dream. Well, several set of dreams, since this was only the first. If anyone is interested, I can tell you about the next few nights.

Part 2 If anyone is interested.

Part 3 is now up.

Part 4 for your consideration.

The finale