Five-Minute Apocalypse

I never sleep on my back. It's not an intentional decision founded by logic, only an abstract resolution that I made at some point in my toddler years. Based on nightmares and damaged intellectual impulses, I guess. It isn't as if I am afraid to have the fragile underside of my torso exposed or irrationally worried that my lungs will fill with fluid if they can't drain onto the mattress. I sleep on my stomach, my side, even face-down but never like the funerary image of tranquility. Inevitably I turn over, roll out of bed, or else wake in a panic when I spot the ceiling above me. It may fall any moment and my heart is convinced that my back will defend me from the weight of a collapsing sky. I do not sleep like Tyson, who slumbers with his arms lying child-like on either side of him and palms raised vulnerably. Neither do I sleep like Cole, who is loud with his nose and spread-eagle and completely careless with his limbs. Unlike those two I curl up as if I am afraid that someone will beat me at any moment. Maybe I was proclaimed a witch and slowly crushed to death (with the force of boards weighted by stones, Salem Witch Trial Style) in another life.

But I am not sleeping just now so I can lie with the weight of the ceiling looming overhead. It is a nondescript white and smooth as refrigerated cream and I imagine that it may reflect my image back to me if I gaze intently enough. Perhaps it will drip onto my skin like milk and I really will drown from my brash choice to lie on my back. Choking in the downpour with a bitter thought of what the report will say was my cause of death. I envision the ceiling running downward from the depths of an unseen sky and experience a moment of terror at the notion. But honestly it is only a ceiling in a hotel room, painted the most untainted hue achievable (with a desire to be purer than its occupants and their undisclosed deeds, I think).

Beneath me I feel the embracing softness of a Western-style mattress and wonder if the Japanese are merely too nice or if they have some false idea of how soft the West's beds are kept. The sheets seem thick and uncomfortable in contrast to the sinking plush of the mattress, absorbing my body heat and returning it tenfold until my skin has beaded with sweat. But I am loathe to kick the blankets away for they make me feel defended, protected, concealed. I can hear nothing in the pretend-still atmosphere of this room but I know that the enchanting glow of lights from outside is rent with activity and sound. If I reached toward the glimmer of Tokyo's skyline I would pass from one dimension to another and be appalled at the sudden volume, hanging in the yawning absence outside the window before falling like a most ungainly condemned angel into the crowd. I stay in my own pocket of reality pontificating over milky ceilings and the pathetic nature of my being.

My head turns to the side seeking a separation from the threatening press of a canvas sky. The dark of the room is penetrated by the blue/yellow/orange/red/green/purple of the billboards, buildings, Subway station, and passing cars filtering in through a thick sheet of glass. If I ran at it perhaps I could shatter it and dive the ten stories to a milling sidewalk and find out that it is, in fact, not very thick glass. Or maybe I would be the one to shatter, scattering shards of the person-formerly-known-as-Alexis across the gray carpet for the maid to retrieve and discard in the garbage can. It would be a curious experiment. A beautiful, horrible disaster. Or maybe not so horrible because really, I wonder how deeply anyone would miss me. Maybe my Mom would. But she has Cole; my twin-brother-the-Good-Son who married a woman (even if he does fuck several other male/female persons in addition), almost got a decent job, and who has never required therapy or Syraquil.

The sheets itch my skin and I shift with the lights that pass below my window. I can see the faint pinpricks of dark windows in the buildings opposite this hotel and wonder if anyone has been left inside. Office hours must be long over but there has to be something, anything, breathing inside. There is something eerie and perverse about a vacant building; a chilly place of abandonment and repetitive use. Maybe I could learn Japanese and become the janitor to care for those mysterious midnight spaces. I could simply vanish into the sea of faces and never return to the US, forever naïve to whether I was missed or if they had shed one tear and forgotten my existence entirely. The hours of a night-cleaner would coincide with my bodies' schedule and I could feel important for bringing life to the shell of steel and plaster. There I would be understated and potentially unrecognizable as a former aspiring-actor that no one will grieve, unnamed. But as shy and reclusive as I may be I recognize that I am also an attention craver, and think maybe I couldn't live in dark empty buildings working long shifts with my mop. I must be busy and I have to keep something to live for or I will plunge into a suicidal depression.

My fingers seek the edge of the cotton sheet, thumbing at the rough complexity of the weave. It has the starched thickness of every other hotel bedsheet and is entirely apathetic to whether it is comfortable for its guest. I wonder how well they clean these blankets and decide it must be very thorough to feel so perfect and unused to my sensitive hands. I gather the fabric into a tight ball and hold it to the dull, uninteresting drum of my heart. I would have liked to feel the thrilled thrum of excitement or the steady thud of contentment but my pulse resides at a slow and boring place of mediocrity. The sheet does not yield to my tight hold and feels still unwelcoming while my heart defies all emotional response. It is as loud as the silence of this room.

If I must lie on my back I want my fistful of comfort, damn it. But it is only a sheet, after all, and will remain a poor substitute for the hand that I wish it were. Whether I envision that hand to be Cole's or Tyson's I have not concluded, but it is supposed to be someone's and yet is most definitely not. And now that I have my false hand to hold I surrender my pillows from beneath my head, placing them on either side of me in the semblance of bodies. Again it is a poor, unconvincing act but makes me feel just a small amount less aching. I ought to be exercising the skill-building that was the purpose of this solitary trip but for tonight I find myself feeling hollow and on the brink of a mighty sadness. There sits a rosy-hued bottle beside me on the nightstand, singing alluring ballads of sedation and maybe oblivion. I don't reach for the pills that will steal all my negative feelings, yet. Instead I lie a moment longer tucked between the pillows (which I keep pressing closer in an effort to make them warm and solid). But the pillows, as with that milky ceiling and the fistful of sheet, are only pillows and I know it acutely. Know it in a way that makes the Soba in my belly slither menacingly toward my esophagus and a distinct throb begin near the center of my forehead. I can almost feel the blood vessels winding tight and reflect in resignation that stress is never healthy. I turn onto my stomach, pressing my nose into the too-soft swell of my imaginary Cole. I breathe out but the stress-tightness does not lessen.

I am still holding possessively to the sheet and have managed to tangle myself in it as a result. It is cutting into my stomach like cord and I think perhaps I am glad that my stomach is not much of a stomach (as it once was) because that would be entirely too painful. The pillow smells stale but faintly fragrant, not precisely like anything in particular but just clean and warm with my respiration. If it had smelled like cigarettes and hair-diffuser and unwashed skin I might like this pillow but it does not and I think that I would ask it to smell dirty and human just as my brother did. The harsh heat of the sheet is irritating me and I long for the scald of human skin, my flesh flush from being enveloped by two slumbering angels. Pillows have not the arms to embrace and sheets are not smooth and sweaty, therefore this entire bed is second-rate despite the price insisting that it is highest quality. I feel dreadfully, nauseatingly lonely now and decide that I am very stupid for fleeing to this city alone. I might have at least brought Edmund with me, as he would be a kind friend and hold me as I craved. Maybe pretend to love me (or perhaps really love me, for I think that Edmund still does so purely because it is his way of being). And though the tragedy lies with my distant angels I ache to see Edmund creep on tip-toe through the door as if he had been with me all along. Edmund who I recalled in school hallways with his absurd glasses and gawky looks, sharing a smile with me that said we shared something we did not, a friendship that did not develop until years later. The same Edmund who had been my best friend since the dawn of adulthood and continues to be the only person alive that tolerates my behavior 24/7. I miss feeling loved.

My thoughts make their leap from Edmund back to reality and I want to cling to the fleeing memories but allow them their retreat. I raise my head to study the dark dimness, the voids of black where doors and closets are marked. This room is so clean and proper, as if no one had ever been meant to exist here and mar its strict symmetry. Certainly not me, the clutter-bug artist that must surely irritate the dutiful hotel Housekeeping. There are no Christmas lights here, no tree, no gifts stacked in haphazard towers mocking the children who will have to wait until morning to open them. It is as if Christmas is nothing but a word (I remind myself that in Japan this is true) and I can hardly imagine that somewhere, thousands of miles from this city, my family dreams beneath a bower of colored lights and promises of snow. My family who hadn't questioned my decision to be gone for the first Christmas since my birth. Did they even notice I was not there or were they too occupied by fussing over my replacement? Somewhere in Newark my brother was banging his new whore (wife) into the hard American bed with a hasty 'Merry Christmas!' (whispered quiet to avoid waking Mom). And on the other side of town Tyson was sleeping in his beautiful innocent manner with his dogs draped over him like a personal army, oblivious to anything but how warm and content he was to be home. Everyone was tucked into their worn comfortable blankets like Christmas packages themselves, while I was trapped in a room (I had shut myself in it) and wouldn't know it was Christmas in Jersey if I hadn't been counting.

I lifted one hand to wave at the window, as if the sight would be captured by the windows of the office building opposite and reflected all the way back to my hometown. In the darkness my skin seemed almost luminescent, the white heightened by night until it was stark as uncovered bone. A small, skinny hand with absurdly long fingers that always seemed to be getting in my way. It looked nothing like the tiny, plump, rough hand of years past when I was a child that constantly fell and split my palms. I was one of the children that had one bandage to each finger and occasionally two but not for the reasons that one might guess. I was clumsy on my own and often knocked around by good-faced peers, and then I was an artist with a penchant for wearing my skin to a harsh sandpaper. My hands were soft, now, and very thin and very adult. Change is a natural, indubitable facet of life. All good things must end and as we near the pit into which we've resigned ourselves to I can only be bitter that I have to go down alone.

“Merry Christmas, Cole.” I say into the indifferent quiet of my room.

And I know that Cole will not hear me, because he's so wrapped inside the horrible, grotesque woman that he has married. He never listens to me anymore. Never thinks of me. Just dotes on her sorry pregnant ass while I mourn losing the one constant in my life. He does not realize that we have traded places and I am the younger brother reaching for him.

“Merry Christmas, Simon.”

Simon is not awake, I know. He is sleeping in Nevada and most likely unconsciously worrying over those he cares about because Simon is the Superman that must be prepared to defend his comrades. Our Las Vegas law student is very inherently good and I feel grateful that he exists. But I doubt I enter his thoughts, as he finds me utterly unlikable. I hope his Christmas at home is a good one, as he deserves.

“Merry Christmas, Edmund.”

Jersey is quiet and I imagine that Edmund has wormed himself into his purple-hued bed; he will let out a sigh of relief at being in his old room with the stuffed animals and posters and memories of better days. And Edmund will wish us all good night, because he is a happy-go-lucky person and this is what he does, before consenting to sleep and anticipation of his mother's Christmas cooking.

“Merry Christmas, Maddy.”

I am certain my old, old friend has drugged herself to sleep and is blissfully swathed in dreams. Maddy will be melancholy when she wakes in a few hours but she will also be comforted by her fiance, who will be her ray of sunshine to make Christmas lively. And though perhaps Maddy has never liked Christmas she will make her rounds with telephone greetings, and she may wake me later to tell me she loves me and 'have a great Christmas!'. She doesn't know I am in Tokyo.

“Merry Christmas, Billy.”

I know that if he could hear my wish he would probably spit at me, but I must do it anyhow. When you fall in love with someone you can never really fall back out again, and if you do it was never genuine to begin with. I still love Bert very much and it is with sincerity that I want his holiday to be as beautiful as I know it will be. Funny to think that one year ago exactly he was kissing me awake and shouting 'wake up, Alex! It's Chrissstttmmasss!' in a singalong tone. One year ago I thought we would be married when tour settled down and breaking up seemed nothing but a nightmare better left for darker days. Now he has Jimi and his newly-acquired bride-to-be to make his morning a grand affair, and Billy is just the sort of person that can be entirely joyous for no reason at all.

“Merry Christmas, Noah.”

Noah would be snoring happily with dollar-signs in his eyes, and would look silly and endearing as he smiled in his sleep. The dawn hours would find him soon awake and enthusiastic, if not a little distressed by the ice outside his front door. And he would no doubt be calling me also (though he, unlike dear Maddy, knew precisely where I was) to wish me a hasty Merry Christmas while his infant niece shrieked in the background.

“Merry Christmas, Mommy.”

Our house would be still until she shuffled out at six to begin the day's activities. She would bustle about as quietly as possible, setting things in all manner of places only to be moved to a more obscure location before being finally recovered and employed. And maybe she would be a little sad that I was not there but her mind would set on my Dad and Ashley and Cole and the rest of our huge crazy family.

“Merry Christmas, Uncle Joey.”

And I almost thought that perhaps he could hear me and pay a visit, for aren't angels able to do such things? I waited for an echo but heard nothing. Felt nothing. I guess Uncle Joey was busy at home.

“Merry Christmas, Alan.”

Alan would have said 'Merry Christmas, Alexis.' if he were here. Because he may detest me these days but he is still too much of a cheerful person to ignore someone's well-wishing. But he is not here, he is in Jersey feeling miserable but optimistic as his alarm rings. He has to work at the Gas Station on Christmas, and I wish I could storm inside and rescue him from the life that our rejection forced on him. But Alan would have a nice evening, I decided, because that was Alan’s way.

“Merry Christmas, Tyson.”

Beautiful beautiful Tyson who would not stir more than lightly until the sun had fully risen, rolling out of bed and probably getting tangled in his sheets before padding barefoot in to wake his mother with hugs and kisses. He would be wearing those silly over-sized flannel pajama's with the snowmen on them, I guessed, and feeling like a little kid once again. He would ring everyone and say hello, but would most likely not call me all the way over here in Japan. And his day would be warm and chaotic as his holidays always were, for like myself he had a decent-sized family (though the Iero family contained numbers of crazy Portuguese munchkins).

“Merry Christmas, Alexis.” I concluded with a sigh.

I turned over and buried my face in my Tyson-pillow, allowing my breath to draw in and then out slowly until I felt light-headed and unwound. I slept.

An incessant trill of music woke me from my slumber, jarring me awake like a slap to the face. Bleary-eyed I groped on the bedside table for my phone, murmuring frustrated obscenities as I knocked it off and onto the floor. I bent over the side of the bed, scrabbling for whomever was so insistent about calling me. I need to change my ringtone. My fingers slid around the vibrating plastic and I lifted the annoying contraption, forcing my eyes to clear enough to register what was glowing on the I.D. Box. The little screen read 'Le Midget' in bright, happy lettering and had a US (973) area code. The headache returned and I fumbled with the tiny 'Send' button that would open a pathway to home.

“Hello?” I murmured, the sensation of the floor threatening to fall away forcing me to lie back on the pillows and give in to the unexpected.

“Merry Christmas.” Said a voice from the other end, a little awkward and perhaps a bit sad.

“Merry Christmas, Tyson.” I responded.

I wish that the words had brought the joy they were supposed to.