it.
“ Chérie , talk to me. Please.” The man led me to a chair. I continued to stare, working furiously to orient myself.
Adult. Awake now. In France.
Jeannot Courbois.
Night Terrors again. Holy shit. How is it possible? I’m not a little kid!
He brought me a glass of ice-less water and a blanket. Only then did I notice the shaking of my body. I wrapped myself tightly like a papoose and drank the water. He continued to watch me. Through the windows a faint pink hue flushed rosy on the stone buildings. Madame Nony’s tables were stacked and chained against the wall so that they wouldn’t escape.
I turned back to Jeannot. His hair was wild: snakes hissing. His brow furrowed with worry. His eyes rimmed in red. He looked like hell.
“ I had a bad dream,” I said tentatively, in French.
“ That was more than a dream, Chérie . Your eyes were open . You seemed to be—seeing things. Hearing things.”
“ I know. But I’m better now. I must be”— the word? —”walking with sleep again. I did that when I was small.”
He con sidered this. Then he picked up my empty glass, walked into the kitchen and came back with more water. As I drank it down, he asked, “What did you dream?”
“It’s a long story.” Explaining it in French would be…well, pinning Jell-O to a tree.
So I gave him the watered-down, preschool level, Cliff’s Notes version.
II
A little kid doesn’t wonder how her mother stays sane through so many years of Night Terrors.
Kids are naturally egotistical, right? It’s normal. At first I didn’t think about Mom. I hated bedtime and hated sleep and felt afraid of the furniture in the living room glaring at me and grabbing me and eating me alive—but that was it. So what if I also wandered around the house, eyes open, terrorizing that poor heartbroken woman with my waking nightmares?
The stab of empathy came later on, with adulthood.
Imagine her side, I eventually told myself. Imagine the shock of seeing your innocent little girl walking bug-eyed around the house in the dead of night…talking…crying…screaming: a thing possessed.
No wonder Mom thought something was wrong with me! No wonder she bought into Grandma’s superstitious gobbledygook about hexes and Evil Eyes and who knew what else.
No wonder she did n’t see the real-life demons sitting in her own living room. It’s not her fault. It’s not. For so many years I couldn’t consider anything else.
Night Terrors are hallucinations; the cerebral firing of a nightmare. Except they are not nightmares in the normal sense; not images recalled in the safe light of morning—no, no. Night Terrors are NOW Terrors, the horrible thing right here in the room. The monster breathing. The furniture with eyes coming to get the kid while you watch . The kid losing her father, then her mother, then her father again while you witness it, helpless to intervene.
Yes, that was my poor mother’s lot. “She’s dreaming at the wrong stage of sleep,” the doctor explained. “I know it’s frightening. Just comfort her, and be as gentle as you can. She’ll outgrow it.”
And I did outgrow it. I did. So how could it resurface now, in my twenties ?
After one of my episodes my mother would sob things like, “Oh my God, baby, are you all right?”, and: “What’s wrong with you, sweetie? We need to go back to the doctor!”
But tonight the person freaking out was Jeannot. Poor guy. Three thousand miles from home my old nemesis had sneaked up with the stealth of a jaguar and snatched me out of Jeannot’s arms.
I’m baaaack…
III
When I finished explaining, Jeannot came over to me and kneeled on the floor. “ Je t’adore ,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”
His eyes were p leading. I knew they were asking to be let in; for me to trust him in some new way that I could hardly imagine. And I stared back, wondering if everything in life would feel as treacherous as this: a sweet summer love affair that promised to be
“ Chérie , talk to me. Please.” The man led me to a chair. I continued to stare, working furiously to orient myself.
Adult. Awake now. In France.
Jeannot Courbois.
Night Terrors again. Holy shit. How is it possible? I’m not a little kid!
He brought me a glass of ice-less water and a blanket. Only then did I notice the shaking of my body. I wrapped myself tightly like a papoose and drank the water. He continued to watch me. Through the windows a faint pink hue flushed rosy on the stone buildings. Madame Nony’s tables were stacked and chained against the wall so that they wouldn’t escape.
I turned back to Jeannot. His hair was wild: snakes hissing. His brow furrowed with worry. His eyes rimmed in red. He looked like hell.
“ I had a bad dream,” I said tentatively, in French.
“ That was more than a dream, Chérie . Your eyes were open . You seemed to be—seeing things. Hearing things.”
“ I know. But I’m better now. I must be”— the word? —”walking with sleep again. I did that when I was small.”
He con sidered this. Then he picked up my empty glass, walked into the kitchen and came back with more water. As I drank it down, he asked, “What did you dream?”
“It’s a long story.” Explaining it in French would be…well, pinning Jell-O to a tree.
So I gave him the watered-down, preschool level, Cliff’s Notes version.
II
A little kid doesn’t wonder how her mother stays sane through so many years of Night Terrors.
Kids are naturally egotistical, right? It’s normal. At first I didn’t think about Mom. I hated bedtime and hated sleep and felt afraid of the furniture in the living room glaring at me and grabbing me and eating me alive—but that was it. So what if I also wandered around the house, eyes open, terrorizing that poor heartbroken woman with my waking nightmares?
The stab of empathy came later on, with adulthood.
Imagine her side, I eventually told myself. Imagine the shock of seeing your innocent little girl walking bug-eyed around the house in the dead of night…talking…crying…screaming: a thing possessed.
No wonder Mom thought something was wrong with me! No wonder she bought into Grandma’s superstitious gobbledygook about hexes and Evil Eyes and who knew what else.
No wonder she did n’t see the real-life demons sitting in her own living room. It’s not her fault. It’s not. For so many years I couldn’t consider anything else.
Night Terrors are hallucinations; the cerebral firing of a nightmare. Except they are not nightmares in the normal sense; not images recalled in the safe light of morning—no, no. Night Terrors are NOW Terrors, the horrible thing right here in the room. The monster breathing. The furniture with eyes coming to get the kid while you watch . The kid losing her father, then her mother, then her father again while you witness it, helpless to intervene.
Yes, that was my poor mother’s lot. “She’s dreaming at the wrong stage of sleep,” the doctor explained. “I know it’s frightening. Just comfort her, and be as gentle as you can. She’ll outgrow it.”
And I did outgrow it. I did. So how could it resurface now, in my twenties ?
After one of my episodes my mother would sob things like, “Oh my God, baby, are you all right?”, and: “What’s wrong with you, sweetie? We need to go back to the doctor!”
But tonight the person freaking out was Jeannot. Poor guy. Three thousand miles from home my old nemesis had sneaked up with the stealth of a jaguar and snatched me out of Jeannot’s arms.
I’m baaaack…
III
When I finished explaining, Jeannot came over to me and kneeled on the floor. “ Je t’adore ,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”
His eyes were p leading. I knew they were asking to be let in; for me to trust him in some new way that I could hardly imagine. And I stared back, wondering if everything in life would feel as treacherous as this: a sweet summer love affair that promised to be
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