Insomnia

My eyes fluttered open. I stared into the hazy interdimensional portal between sleep and consciousness debating if I should fade back into a deep slumber or pull myself into the living world. Something must have woken me up. I forced my heavy eyelids completely open, but the bedroom had transformed into an obsidian cave.

Before I had drifted off to sleep, I had pulled the covers over my face to block the green glow of Rory's iPad. His ritual of smoking a bowl and watching an episode of something while I fluttered off to sleep had predated our marriage of five years, so this was nothing new. Since the iPad was now sitting on the nightstand and he was snoring away on his side of the bed, it must have been after midnight.

I turned over onto my back and felt a twinge in my bladder. I immediately regretted that second glass of wine that went down a little too well right before bed. I thought about wrapping my body into a tight blanket burrito and drifting back to sleep, but the pressure on my bladder would only get more intense as the night wore on. I would have to get up at some point before my alarm went off, which would be well after the morning sunlight leaked through the blinds.

I decided screw it and rolled the warm covers off my bare legs. Rory didn't even stir when the bed groaned, and I creaked my way over the floorboards toward the bedroom door. I felt my way along the hallway and found the bathroom light switch as I clicked the door shut behind me.

I cringed as my dilated pupils shriveled against the harsh fluorescent glow above the mirror. I could still taste the boxed wine beneath a thin layer of toothpaste as I sleepily stumbled barefoot across the bathroom tiles. If the harsh fluorescent light hadn't completely jolted me awake, I was certainly wide awake after sitting down on the cold toilet seat.

That's when I remembered why I needed that second glass of wine right before bed. I was dreading having to be in another meeting with that crass asshole, Nelson. The frat boy sales reps around the office called him Nelly and it made me want to vomit.

We had been having our routine quarterly meeting to discuss next quarter’s budget and I had been presenting on why I thought the marketing department deserved a larger piece of the pie. Every time I had tried to highlight an accomplishment from the e-commerce team, Nelson would interrupt, proceed to talk over me and then belittle my response. It had gotten to the point that I became visually flustered, but I never backed down. I had wanted to punch the stupid grin off his caveman face, but somehow I had kept my composure. The only thing that would have made me quit on the spot was if he would have called me Honey or Sweetie, but even he had sensed where to draw the line.

I had fought tooth and nail to become the marketing director because of hard work and dedication and I wasn't going to let some has-been sports cliche put me in my place. He had kept putting his hand up as if to signal that the adults were talking every time he tried to have a side bar with Glen, the VP. Luckily, Glen had been the one to promote me, so he had eventually quashed whatever lame bully tactics Nelson had been trying to impose. I was absolutely dreading having to do round two tomorrow, but such is life in the corporate world if you want to be respected as a woman.

I finished doing my business and washed my hands. Now that I was awake, my mind was spinning out of control. If I wasn't careful, I might be starting my day sooner than expected, which wouldn't do my mood any favors.

As I clicked off the bathroom light and felt my way back to Rory's musical snores, I noticed a greenish glow emanating from the office, which was next to our bedroom. It looked like Rory hadn't logged off the computer from his earlier session, which was highly unlike him. How had I not noticed that before?

As I walked into the room, I felt a chill course through my skin, like I had been sweating and then sat by a cold breeze blowing through an open window. I looked at the screen trying to make out a grainy image, but everything was too distorted. Something seemed to be playing on a loop, like a GIF. Or was it a video that was trying to buffer? I couldn't tell because the screen was dark and kind of looked like a clip from an old silent film or an old timey black and white Mickey Mouse cartoon from the early 1920s.

I tapped the screen, but nothing happened. I tried jiggling the mouse, but still nothing. It was like the image was being burned into the background of the screen. I just hoped Rory hadn't paused a video, got distracted and forgot to log off the computer. But the monitor should have gone to sleep if he had been away for more than a few minutes.

I shuddered as I tried to remember if Rory was snoring when I got up to use the bathroom. He definitely was. My breath caught in my throat as I nervously glanced at the ominous shapes dancing among the shadows of Rory's office. I crossed my arms over my chest and listened, but all I could hear was Rory's snores on the other side of the wall. I started to get that creepy feeling someone was watching me.

“What am I doing?” I angrily asked myself. I'm sure there is a perfectly legitimate reason the screen is still on. I'm just freaking myself out.

I glanced at the time in the bottom corner of the computer screen: 1:45 a.m. I swallowed hard and walked back to our bedroom. I decided I was being ridiculous, and I would ask Rory about it in the morning. I needed as much sleep as I could get tonight.

Night 2

My eyes fluttered open. I blinked repeatedly to make sure I was awake because I couldn't see anything in the pitch-black bedroom. Deja Vu permeated my eardrums with every snore coming from Rory's side of the bed. Something had woken me up again.

I rolled onto my back, but I hadn't needed the wine this evening. My angst from the previous night had been all for not because a huge surprise had been waiting in my inbox when I arrived at work this morning. The email stated that the budget meeting had been cancelled and effective immediately, Nelson was no longer with the organization. I had been floating on top of an ecstatic cloud for most of the day, so I had been exhausted from my unexpected ride on the emotional roller coaster by the time I got home. I must have dozed off as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Something else must have woken me up. I picked up my phone and glanced at the time: 1:45 a.m. I tried to close my eyes, but I couldn't sleep. I must have had a case of excitement jitters, so I rolled out of bed and walked toward the bedroom door. Maybe a little reading would quiet my mind.

As I stumbled into the hallway, I noticed it again. That greenish glow was radiating from the office. I looked back at the lump under the covers of our bed and heard Rory’s signature snores, so I was positive I wasn't dreaming. Maybe he had been on the computer earlier.

I had asked him this morning if he had been on the office computer last night after I had gone to sleep, but he assured me he hadn't been on it since he finished his work around 5:00 p.m. When I had checked the office this morning, the computer was not only logged off, but also shut down. I had begun to think I had dreamt the whole thing. Rory claimed he had no explanation and just shrugged it off, which bothered me more than it should have.

Now I was sure of what I was seeing. I was fully alert with no history of sleepwalking, and the glowing screen definitely wasn't a figment of my imagination. I crept into the room and immediately felt that familiar chill tingle across my skin. I rubbed my arms and scanned the shadowy nooks and crannies just as I had done the night before.

When I was sure nobody else was in the room, I focused my attention on the computer screen. The looped image was still grainy, but the center of the screen was a bit clearer tonight. I walked closer to the monitor and squinted to try and make out what was playing.

The only thing I could decipher was a black and white image of a woman with ratty shoulder-length hair. She was wearing a lacy white dress and weeping into her hands. She must have been sitting in some sort of living room or den, maybe on a couch, but the rest of the screen was still dim and out of focus. It was unsettling to watch her silently heave her slender shoulders as she wept into her frail hands over and over on the same five-second loop. It was almost worse to imagine what her sorrowful sobs sounded like in my head as I stood and watched in this shadowy room during the middle of the night.

I wondered if Rory was behind this. He did work as a graphic designer, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. But how would he know I'd wake up at the exact same time as the night before? I was certain I hadn't told him the exact time.

If he had pulled off such an elaborate, albeit creepy prank, then I decided hats off to him. I just wished it would have been, I don't know, funnier. He wasn't big on practical jokes, but maybe he noticed how much it had bothered me this morning and decided he couldn't resist the temptation to mess with me.

The silent loop was becoming disturbing, so I jiggled the mouse and tapped a few keys on the keyboard. Of course, nothing happened. Real funny, Rory. I braced myself because I half-expected a scream to ring from the speakers as a final icing on the cake of scare tactics, but the silent looped image kept repeating its macabre cycle.

Now I was getting frustrated. I reached for the power cord and yanked it out of the socket. If Rory lost some important unsaved files, so be it. Maybe it would teach him a lesson on how to respect his wife.

I crawled out from behind the desk and to my dismay, the screen hadn't turned off. It was worse. The image of the sobbing woman was burned into the screen. It wasn't playing on a loop anymore; it was just a static image of the feeble woman sobbing into her hands mid-heave.

I frantically smashed the power button on the monitor, but the screen was frozen. I didn't know what else to do, so I huffily left the office and shut the door behind me. Hopefully the burned image had ruined Rory's computer monitor and he would have to buy a new one.

Night 3

My eyes fluttered open. I reached for the covers to pull them over my face. How could I have gone from passed out like I was under anesthesia to wide awake in the snap of a finger? Is that what had woken me up?

I elbowed Rory's back from under the covers, but it hadn't even interrupted his snore. The combination of smoking and solid sleep genetics made it nearly impossible to rouse him so soon after he finally succumbed to sleep. It must have been early in the night, like before midnight. I reluctantly reached for my phone and checked. My heart revved in my chest like a speed demon waiting for her fix at a red light when I saw the time: 1:45.

Now my brain had to be messing with me. This nightly occurrence with the office computer was seeping into my subconscious. I was stressed out enough as it was. After pulling the plug on the computer and seeing that disturbing image on the monitor the night before, I hadn't been able to sleep well for the rest of the night. I had thought about sitting in the living room and trying to read, but I had been too chicken shit to sit out there by myself, even with the lights on. I convinced myself that I would feel like someone would be watching me through the large bay windows, so I had just laid awake tossing and turning most of the night.

My day at work had suffered as a result. I had felt agitated and short with people, even though I should have been riding cloud nine since I didn't have to deal with Nelson anymore. I had felt foggy, like I couldn't concentrate on anything, and I had become increasingly frustrated throughout the day. I had come home even more exhausted than the day before.

The thing that frustrated me the most was when I had told Rory how immature his little prank was and that it was affecting my work life. He had gotten all defensive and insisted he had no idea what I was talking about. He even made an elaborate show of proving to me the computer was logged off and shut down before I went to bed tonight, as if to subtly jab that I might be going off the rails a bit. If he was behind this sophisticated prank, then he was really committing to it, but this wasn't like him.

I laid under the comfort of the warm covers for a few minutes and just listened. I couldn't see anything but shadowy outlines of inanimate objects around the bedroom, but all I could hear was Rory's rumbling snores. If I could sleep through that, then what the hell had woken me from my once in a lifetime hibernation?

I wasn't going to be able to fall asleep again, so I decided to bite the bullet and face my irrational fear. Maybe the computer monitor wouldn't be on tonight and I could finally put this behind me. It wasn't like the monitor could physically harm me. I needed a restful night of sleep to keep whatever sanity I had left.

I took a short breath to psych myself up and rolled the covers off my pajama bottoms. I tiptoed toward the bedroom door and gingerly poked my head into the hallway. As soon as I saw the greenish glow radiating from the office, I ducked back into the bedroom.

This is insane. I'm not insane, am I? How can this be possible? Two nights in a row is a coincidence, but three is an established pattern.

I considered crawling back under the covers and trying to ignore what I had seen, but I already knew my curiosity would keep me away from dreamland for the rest of the night. This was my house and I had to know what was causing the computer screen to do this at the exact same time each night. Rory was a gifted graphic designer, but he didn't have the patience or attention span to keep up a charade like this. This was something else.

I swallowed the fear lodged in my throat and walked into the darkened hallway. The green glow from the office seemed brighter tonight, like it was taunting me. I dare you to come see what unnerving video I have playing for you tonight.

The scared little girl buried deep inside me wanted to play the damsel in distress and run back to the bedroom to have her knight in shining armor slay the evil computer screen. Then I reminded myself that she died a long time ago and I didn't need anyone, not even my husband, to fight my battles. I could face my fears, real or imaginary, myself.

That creepy feeling someone was watching me invaded my intuition again, so I turned around and peered down the black hallway. I couldn't see anything, but my mind was on high alert. I imagined someone running at me out of the darkness, but there was nothing there. At least nothing I could see.

No, this is my house. I locked all the doors and windows before bed, I made double sure of it. The only people inside were me and my unconscious husband. This had to be my imagination getting the best of me.

My fingernails dug into my palm as I forced myself to turn my back on the black pit of the hallway and enter the office. I bit my lip when the icy chill pricked my skin. My arm muscles started involuntarily shaking as I searched the shadowy pockets large enough to hide a person.

When I was sure I was standing alone in the room, I brought my eyes to the computer screen. The screen was bright enough to see the entire video this time. It was still black and white, but I could see the whole frame. The silent era video contained the same ratty-haired woman sobbing into her delicate hands. Her lacy white dress, which could have been a wedding dress, heaved along with her body.

Something was different tonight. The video wasn't playing on a loop. Tonight, the video was playing through to the end. I noticed her head tilt at a different angle. I was sure of it because of how many times the looped version played in my head last night. It was heartbreaking to watch how tormented she seemed, but also disturbing. Why did this video seem like it was meant for me?

That's when I noticed the rest of the frame. I hadn't before because everything was in black and white. I put my hand over my mouth to stifle a scream when I noticed the woman was sitting on our living room couch. Suddenly, her hands dropped from her face and an insidious smile spread across her lips. The video finished and the monitor turned off, leaving me in total darkness with the office door ajar.