The Sleeping Man

The Oak Estate, November 4015 a.d.

He slept for 40 days and nights after we found him. Perhaps he had been sleeping longer, we don’t know. It took me and two of the older children two hours to drag him back to The Oak from the snow where he’d lain. We were wide-eyed, in a dream, anticipating something spectacular as we dragged him up two flights of stairs and plunked him clumsily into a bed. All day and night, he slept. His breathing, invisible. His vibrance, superb. He had no wounds we could see, and our scanners cleared him as clean from disease and infection. I put water and dark bread with beans by his bedside each night. It was eaten a few times, but we never saw him eat it.

The children became spies for 40 days. Every night before bedtime, they peeked past his door. I let them because they were mesmerized by him, tranced as though they were the sun, and he the moon, trapped in a tandem of quiet admirations. They’d never seen a man before. It bothered me that my reaction to him was similar to theirs. I transformed watching him and became someone new, someone I could not yet name... I named him my sleeping muse. We all had an eery connection with him.

He had shoulder-length curly dark hair that fell at the sides of his head, framing his face like a perfect portrait. He was of tall build, maybe 190 pounds and had no scent. His garments were all black, and like clean matted potato sacks, with a kind of translucent silicone hem holding them together at the seams. He had no markings or possessions on him when we found him except a heart shaped locket. It seemed to be made of every kind of metal - silver, gold, copper, steel, iron... The chain holding it was a dark metallic that looked black unless the candle came near it and then it changed.

On nights when my dreams ailed me, I went and sat by his door, reading or writing until the music came. Without fail, songs I’d never heard, playing from somewhere I could not perceive echoed into my mind. Yet, there was never a peep from his room. Never a rustle or whisper. Nothing.

When the superintendent finally found out on the 40th day that I’d been keeping the sleeping man, she asked me why. I couldn’t say. Apprehension cemented my lips the moment she asked me. “What were you thinking? You know nothing of this man! Perhaps he’s infectious, ‘ey! Maybe he belongs to the fleet?! Why have you done this Ankya? …endangered the children… unthinking!” I sat staring straight into her raging amber eyes. “What if he wakes up!?” She paced and shook and sweat formed upon her face. “What if he wakes up and takes one of the children Ankya? What were you thinking?! The incubators are still down! Every life alive now could be all we have left! Was I mistaken in making you Head Priestess? Was I?” Her heart was fluttering in her feet, but mine was floating to my muse, sublimely detached. Nonetheless, I answered with militant resolve, “I will take care of it”. Her eyes widened, screaming at me through tears dancing on their edges. “I will take care of it Ma’am.” She shook her head, moving her gaze to the ground, unblinking. I placed my hand softly on her shoulder, and motioned for her gaze to return to me. “Ma’am.” I forced my mind to scream into hers: “I will take care of it.” And I meant it, I wanted to resolve it and at least find out who he was. Was he the only man left? Where had he come from? Were there any other men? I had the same concerns she had, but my drive had been taken over by the pull he had on me. The superintendent reluctantly accepted my promises and dismissed me from our meeting, “Do not let me down Ankya. Take care of this.” But when the children and I went in that night, there was nothing left to take care of. The sleeping man was gone.

The children panicked first, then sunk into strange mourning. It was odd how they mourned something they’d never actually had, and had always been without. They didn’t sleep a wink that night, and instead grouped into sets of five and held each other and cried. We’d never known religion or seen a church, outside of books, but something in me felt what they were doing was akin to prayer… lamentation. That was Wednesday night. Thursday morning and afternoon continued in a somber echo. Nobody spoke or giggled or ran amuck. They sat paralyzed by an otherworldly, disproportionate grief - all routine broken. Usually once or twice a day one of them would ask questions trying to understand how they came to be, how cloning had sustained us for 700 years, and how we would continue to be if we didn’t find a way to fix the incubators. Miranda in particular, only 4 years old, would ask about the last men. She woke up once from her nap telling me she dreamt of the last men:

“They were beautiful!” she said. “They were big and strong and walked and talked real different Mama Ankya! I want to meet them! Where are they?” She was excited, but there was a deep sadness reigning in her, craving something I knew she needed but would never have. “I’ve told you so many times Miranda. I know you remember. Why must I repeat this story at this hour darling?” “Because Mama. Maybe if you tell me again, I’ll see the answer how I bring them back.” She smiled up at me with pure faith. I felt a sinking from my throat to my stomach. To grieve the heart of a child, whose only request is born of curiosity seemed cruel and malicious. Besides, a few other girls had gathered around, and now sat watching, synchronized with the moment.

“It was 3033. The plague had come the way everyone predicted and the entirety of humanity seemed to all fall ill overnight. Nobody was spared - none immune. They expected a 99% loss of population and the end of life as we knew it, so they created the cloning machines and incubators, with solar power sources meant to power everything for 1,000 years. What they did not expect was for the plague to kill all of the men - every, single, one of them. Mothers lost their newborn sons, sisters lost their brothers, every wife alive lost her husband, every daughter lost her father… there was not one that survived.” I wanted to leave out the worst details for them - how 30% of the remaining women killed themselves or were so grief-stricken they laid down to cry and never got back up; how the cities of those times are cemeteries now with bodies littering every house, street, hospital and place of what they called “worship”. I left these details out, to protect their young minds from tragedy beyond their time. I continued on, “We were lucky though darlings, because the 1% of women who survived had enough people left who knew how to operate the cloning machines and by 3039 we began cloning each woman alive when they turned 25. We assigned the estates to the Priestesses, with 22 girls to each Estate. That’s how you got here!” Miranda smiled, pleased yet pulling for more. “After a couple hundred years, we had enough repopulation to begin building new cities between the estates by the Waterlands. We began teaching the arts and sciences once more, and in 3710, we began looking to the sky - hoping one day we would find people like us off-planet, a people with men left. That’s still what we’re doing Miranda. And one day… one day.” I felt a peculiar weakness each time I retold the story. I strengthened myself, remembering to breathe normally. Miranda was satisfied and stared into the trees with glee, “I think we’ll find one Ankya! I really think we will! Maybe the sleeping man can show us how.” She gazed at me with the joy of a child untouched by real tragedy, and pranced away picking flowers as she approached The Oak to join her sisters for dinner.

Today was not that kind of day though, one filled with the innocent beauty of a child’s undying curiosity. It was silent, death-like. The girls seemed changed, as though they’d all aged 10 years in their souls. By the time evening came on Thursday, it was not the usual hassle to rally them to bed. They went of their own accord, most refusing dinner. My chest ached, reaching for the unknown. The irrepressible loss they felt weighed on me like boulders, smushing my senses into nothingness. How will I remedy this? And goodness! What am I going to tell the superintendent… woes piled one on another. I kissed the last girl goodnight and decided to indulge in a barley brew and watch the moon on the kitchen porch. I walked toward the stairs with my robe flowing softly around my shins, reminding me there was pleasantness in life. I grabbed the candle from the wall at the end of the hall and walked down, my breath and steps softened, shielding the house from noise. I was relieved at the thought of being alone with my brew and the moon. Things are not so bad. I thought to myself. They could be much worse. The girls are excelling in their gifts, in their studies, with their health. Focus on good things Ankya. Everything is okay. It will all work out somehow. I brought myself to peace. But as I walked into the kitchen a new terror stared back at me… The sleeping man was very awake. I fainted before I could get a word out.

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Prickling pain rained down my body second by second and I forced my eyes to open. Is it afternoon? I heard the girls, laughing and playing. Am I outside? What happened? I squinted through sleep to see the swings and oaks. Adrenaline swallowed my veins. I jumped up, “Sara!” I called the eldest, looking for her amongst the play. “Sara!” A voice whispered behind me, “Shhhh. Shhh. Take it slow Bethany. Take it slow.” My chest was about to explode, I thought for certain I’d faint again. A man? Is that the voice of a man? I turned to see the sleeping man staring into me as though he knew me. “What? Who? What? Why are you with my children!? What have you done?” I quivered remembering the words of the superintendent. “Shhhhh Bethany. Remember. Just breathe and remember.” He coaxed me gently, with sincere resolve. I could feel intentions of peace. “Why do you keep calling me that? My name is Ankya. Stop calling me that. Who are you? Who are you!” I looked around, desperate to see each of the girls safe. They were all playing and unphased by my muse standing upright amongst us. “It’s okay. You will remember everything." He said in a hypnotic tone, tempering the waves of my mind effortlessly. "You’ll sleep with it tonight, it will help.” He pointed at my chest. The heart shaped locket now adorned my neck, and as I turned my gaze to it, I knew he was right. I was about to remember everything.