Briefing for a Descent into Hell Part 11

stopped being so wakeful.

Thank G.o.d, he's asleep.

I'm off to their school now and I'm learning to be good.

I'm a good boy now, I am quiet and good.

One and one are two

And the third is Me.

Me half beaten back into dark, me quietened, regulated, time-tabled, a nuisance tamed, me the obediently sleeping.

But back in the dark in the deep of my mind is where I know quite well the door is, back or forward, up or down, beyond the Boooom, shush, the eternally boooooming, the pulse, the beat, the one and two, the one and two, through there, who knows which or where-I do. I know. I remember. Do I remember? Yes, I remember. I must remember. There. Where?

The little white days flicker faster faster, flick flick flick, on and off, white with the slices of dark between, the days for living, and the nights for Sleep.

He doesn't sleep well doctor, he needs a pill.

The small days flicker and the nights are killed dead with Pills. But he sleeps well, he is healthy and regulated and good.

And now the greatest drug of them all, the sweet dream, sweet night dreams and sweeter day dreams, I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair and wide-apart legs like loving arms.

And now I'm grown and gone, and I work and play all regulated ordered and social and correct, and I sleep now less than I ever did in my life for this short brief blissful time, just away from that bed the family, before I become that feather bed the family, and I'm young and my dreams and living are all one, white arms around my neck and I drown, I drown, she and I, he and I, down among the dead men. Down.

Oh doctor can you give me a pill to make me sleep. Oh, I'm working too hard and Oh, I'm worried about my marriage, and oh I'm worried about my job, and oh I can't stand what I think. Oh give me a pill and give me a drink and give me a smoke and give me dope, give me enough food to knock me silly, give me now everything I had when I was baby, give me what you trained me to need before I even talked or walked, give me anything you like, but let me SLEEP for in the dark where the door once was (but is it still?) is the place I can tolerate being alive at all. I never learned to live awake. I was trained for sleep. Oh let me sleep and sleep my life away. And if the pressure of true memory wakes me before I need, if the urgency of what I should be doing stabs into my sleep, then for G.o.d's sake doctor, for goodness sake, give me drugs and put me back to dreaming again.

And now life is wearing thin and as it reaches the end the drugs are wearing thinner, less life for loving, less room for food, less stomach for drink, and sleep is harder to reach and thinner, and sleeping is no longer the Drop into the black pit all oblivion until the alarm clock, no, sleep is thin and fitful and full of memories and reminders and the dark is never dark enough and Give me pills, give me more pills. I MUST SLEEP.

No, I don't enjoy my nights reading thinking talking and simply being alive, no, I want to sleep, I have to sleep.

In a long narrow ward where sixty old men in charity pyjamas are put to bed like infants for the night at nine o'clock by inst.i.tution nurses, the nurse goes around, with sixty doses of SLEEP.

SLEEP WELL.

In the outpatients of a million hospitals, in the consulting rooms of a million million medicoes, a million million million hands are stretched out, Doctor give me pills to make me sleep.

SLEEP WELL.

As the earth revolves, one half always in the dark, from the dark half rises up a wail, oh I can't sleep, I want to sleep, I don't sleep enough, but give me pills to make me sleep, give me alcohol to make me sleep, give me s.e.x to make me sleep.

SLEEP WELL.

In mental hospitals where the millions who have cracked, making cracks where the light could shine through at last, the pills are like food pellets dropped into battery chickens' food hoppers, SLEEP, the needles slide into the outstretched arms, SLEEP, the rubber tubes strapped to arms drip, SLEEP.

SLEEP, for you are not yet dead.

I must wake up.

I have to wake up.

I can feel myself struggling and fighting as if I were sunk a mile deep in thick dragging water but far above my head in the surface shallows I can see sunlanced waves where the glittering fishes dance and swim, oh let me rise, let me come up to the surface like a cork or a leaping porpoise into the light. Let me fly like a flying fish, a fish of light.

They hold me down, they cradle me down, they hush and they croon, SLEEP and you'll soon be well.

I fight to rise, I struggle as if I were a mile under heavy sour black earth and above the earth slabs of stone, I fight so hard and I shout, No, no, no, no, don't, I won't, I don't want, let me wake, I must wake up, but Shhhhhh, hush, SLEEP and in slides the needle deep and down I go into the cold black dark depth where the sea floor is an earth of minute skeletons, detritus from eroding continents, fishes' scales and dead plants, new earth for growing. But not me, I don't grow, I don't sprout, I loll like a corpse or a drowned kitten, my head rolling as I float and black washes over me, dark and heavy.

He is sleeping well, doctor, yes, he is resting well, yes,

he is very quiet, yes, he is no trouble at all.

But I must wake up.

But I am tied hands and feet, I am wrapped about and around with strands of seaweed from the Sarga.s.so Sea, and I roll helpless on the ocean floor, down among the dead men, and my eyes are blacked out, sleep is heavier in me than the need is to wake and fight.

I must wake up.

Doctor he is very weak now. Yes he is restless between shots. Yes, he seems confused, bewildered, unable to feed himself, seems to want to go back to sleep, does not want to wake up, was angry when I said to him, We think you should wake up now.

Nurse how can I wake when you hush me, hush me, hush me, Hushhhhhh, shhhhh, I'm down among the dead men, and sweet sleep has dreams that daylight never knew, better to sleep where the dreams may come and visit, sweet promising dreams, marvelling visitors from there who know and tell that behind (or before) and down (or up) is the door up and out into the sweet light of day.

Well now, and how are you feeling?

Feeling?

We'd like to know how you are? Are?

You've had a good sleep and we think that now you are rested you ought to be able to remember who you are.

Who are you?

I'm Doctor Y.

I've never known anyone of that name.

Don't you remember me?

That's not what I have to remember.

No. Not if you don't want. But who are you?

Why, can't you see me?

I can see you very well indeed.

Then there you are.

Can you remember your name now perhaps?

My name! But I've had so many names.

You see, we have found out a little about you, but it would be better if you remembered it for yourself. Can you try?

I can.

Well then?

There's something I ought to be doing, I know that. Yes, I know that.

What?

Not this, not here. There.

There? Where? Can you remember at all?

Yes, remembering.

What?

No, who.

Yes, that's what I mean.

It was there, I know it was. We have to. We have to remember.

We?

It's the law of G.o.d.

Ah. I see. Well, well. Well, rest a bit now. You've not done badly for your first time really awake.

Oh but I've been much more awake than this. This isn't awake at all.

Oh good, good.

It's knowing, Harmony. G.o.d's law. That's what it is. Let me ... let me ... I must ... let me get up.

Now now shhhhhh, don't get so excited, there's a good chap. Nurse, will you come here a minute? Good. I'll see you tomorrow then, Professor.

Tomorrow? No, that's too late. I must get up.