out was down.
He searched the neighborhood for her, hoping to turn a corner and see her sitting on a stoop, confused, maybe scraped up a bit and babbling, but okay. Back in the loft, he sat in the darkness, suffering fits of guilt. Why hadn’t he tied her more securely to the chair? Why had he left the window open? Of course, the biggest mistake was that he allowed himself to sleep for so long in the bedroom. How could he have been so weak when so much was at stake? The same way people fall asleep at the wheel of a vehicle traveling at high speed, he knew. Sleep, if held off for too long, had a way of overriding even the body’s most basic directives to persist. And though it had lost its grip on everyone else he knew, sleep retained him as its servant. Why? He did not know. Nor did he know if there were others like him.
It occurred to him that Carolyn might have tried to return to her father’s house in the suburbs. Maybe she had somehow found her way to the ground, maybe leaping to the fire escape—somethingshe might have tried in her delirious state—and started out for her childhood home. They had discussed this retreat as the epidemic began, wondering if it would be a safer place to ride out the crisis, but he insisted on staying in the city.
His preference was always for the city, even though he was from an incorporated sprawl of housing developments thirty miles out. As early as high school, he had vowed to escape what he perceived to be suburban somnolence. Inheriting his father’s insurance agency would be like agreeing to a lifelong coma. Throughout college, his experiences downtown—attending readings and workshops, mixing with artists, musicians, and filmmakers like Carolyn and her friends—confirmed his belief that cities were the flashpoint of consciousness; the suburbs were the geography of sleep. Even now, as the city howled and shuddered, he believed that it was the better place to be—that help, if it was coming, would surface here first.
She didn’t buy it. She had wanted to retreat to her childhood bedroom in a city neighboring his own hometown. They had spent their first summer together in that room as she nursed her dying mother and distracted herself by animating The Dream, which had brought them together. Just over a year ago, she had hidden there for weeks, trying to work through what she called a creative block.
“We’re safer here,” he tried to convince her. “Six floors up, where no one can reach us. Plus, everything we need to survive is within a few blocks.”
“Everything that can kill us is within a few blocks too,” she told him. People were her greatest fear, and in the simple math of her reasoning, there were more here, around them, going slowly insane with sleeplessness. At least her father’s sprawling property had walls, a gated entry, dogs.
He couldn’t help replaying this conversation over and over inhis mind, finding it hopeful. If she were to go anywhere, it would be there. Yet he was trapped by indecisiveness. What if he left and she came back?
He decided to wait another twenty-four hours. He put together his old hiker’s backpack with items he surmised were necessities: a first aid kit, a flashlight, a tin plate and cup from a camping set. He excavated the closet to retrieve an old lightweight sleeping bag. Sleeping bag. The term already felt archaic and provocative. Sleeping bag, he had said to himself as he cinched it to the pack. Sleeping bag sleeping bag sleeping bag. That’s a funny combination of words when you think about it. Sleeping bag. He let out a single bark of laughter and the sound startled him.
With the pack ready and positioned by the door, he returned to Carolyn’s abandoned studio.
It struck him as he surveyed the props and tabletop set that she had made a career of being invisible. Carolyn was not present in her stop-motion films, but rather slipped in between frames—in the gap where time was vast and formless—and incrementally
He searched the neighborhood for her, hoping to turn a corner and see her sitting on a stoop, confused, maybe scraped up a bit and babbling, but okay. Back in the loft, he sat in the darkness, suffering fits of guilt. Why hadn’t he tied her more securely to the chair? Why had he left the window open? Of course, the biggest mistake was that he allowed himself to sleep for so long in the bedroom. How could he have been so weak when so much was at stake? The same way people fall asleep at the wheel of a vehicle traveling at high speed, he knew. Sleep, if held off for too long, had a way of overriding even the body’s most basic directives to persist. And though it had lost its grip on everyone else he knew, sleep retained him as its servant. Why? He did not know. Nor did he know if there were others like him.
It occurred to him that Carolyn might have tried to return to her father’s house in the suburbs. Maybe she had somehow found her way to the ground, maybe leaping to the fire escape—somethingshe might have tried in her delirious state—and started out for her childhood home. They had discussed this retreat as the epidemic began, wondering if it would be a safer place to ride out the crisis, but he insisted on staying in the city.
His preference was always for the city, even though he was from an incorporated sprawl of housing developments thirty miles out. As early as high school, he had vowed to escape what he perceived to be suburban somnolence. Inheriting his father’s insurance agency would be like agreeing to a lifelong coma. Throughout college, his experiences downtown—attending readings and workshops, mixing with artists, musicians, and filmmakers like Carolyn and her friends—confirmed his belief that cities were the flashpoint of consciousness; the suburbs were the geography of sleep. Even now, as the city howled and shuddered, he believed that it was the better place to be—that help, if it was coming, would surface here first.
She didn’t buy it. She had wanted to retreat to her childhood bedroom in a city neighboring his own hometown. They had spent their first summer together in that room as she nursed her dying mother and distracted herself by animating The Dream, which had brought them together. Just over a year ago, she had hidden there for weeks, trying to work through what she called a creative block.
“We’re safer here,” he tried to convince her. “Six floors up, where no one can reach us. Plus, everything we need to survive is within a few blocks.”
“Everything that can kill us is within a few blocks too,” she told him. People were her greatest fear, and in the simple math of her reasoning, there were more here, around them, going slowly insane with sleeplessness. At least her father’s sprawling property had walls, a gated entry, dogs.
He couldn’t help replaying this conversation over and over inhis mind, finding it hopeful. If she were to go anywhere, it would be there. Yet he was trapped by indecisiveness. What if he left and she came back?
He decided to wait another twenty-four hours. He put together his old hiker’s backpack with items he surmised were necessities: a first aid kit, a flashlight, a tin plate and cup from a camping set. He excavated the closet to retrieve an old lightweight sleeping bag. Sleeping bag. The term already felt archaic and provocative. Sleeping bag, he had said to himself as he cinched it to the pack. Sleeping bag sleeping bag sleeping bag. That’s a funny combination of words when you think about it. Sleeping bag. He let out a single bark of laughter and the sound startled him.
With the pack ready and positioned by the door, he returned to Carolyn’s abandoned studio.
It struck him as he surveyed the props and tabletop set that she had made a career of being invisible. Carolyn was not present in her stop-motion films, but rather slipped in between frames—in the gap where time was vast and formless—and incrementally
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