1

Open Sea

I wake up in the middle of the night craving Oreos. It's not uncommon for me to wake up like this, feeling alive and refreshed even though it's 3 A.M. and I've only slept for five hours. I'm used to it. I push away the wrinkled covers and slide out of bed.

The room is dark and my window is open. The soft blue curtains--my favorite color blue--balloon out gently and then deflate, like a pair of lungs breathing in the warm night air. I can see the moon's reflection glowing on the glint of ocean that's visible between the neighborhood buildings down the street. A host of silvery-white clouds sail over the treetops and ebb away under the watchful eye of the full moon. I stand beside the window for a moment, letting the coolness of the hardwood floor tingle in the soles of my feet, then I turn to the door and step out quietly onto the creaky staircase.

Creak. Creak. Creak. The wooden steps act like I weigh three hundred pounds instead of eighty. But I don't mind so much that I'm making a lot of noise. I can already see the blueish light from the TV screen illuminating the bottom of the stairs.

One more creak, and I'm in the living room. The carpet feels good under my bare feet. I look over the shadows of the armchair and couch to see what's on the television. Dad's head is a black silhouette in front of the lit-up screen, just like on the TV shows where people are watching a movie in a theater, adding their commentary between scenes. I cross the room and walk around the chair to the couch where Dad is sitting. The couch makes a ploomph sound when I sit down beside him.

Dad's been awake, too. I can tell because his eyes are just as alive as mine. He smiles and I smile and we both break into the bag of Oreos that's sitting on the coffee table.

What's on TV? The living room glows as men in bright red work suits tackle a heavy crab pot, a wave smashing over the side of their boat. It's Deadliest Catch, our favorite show.

I snuggle into the corner of the couch, burying my cold feet under Dad's warm legs. Soon I feel tired and my eyelids start to droop. I try to keep my eyes open, watching the men on the crab boats sorting through their catch of Alaskan king crab, fixing a leak in the engine room, breaking ice off the frozen, slippery decks as waves crash down and threaten to throw them off their feet, into the subzero water below. I listen to the soft static noise getting farther and farther away, until my eyes finally close and the warmth of the old couch encircles me like one of Dad's great big bear hugs.

I wake up again, and this time I am in a different room. The soft blue curtains have been replaced with plain white walls. The room is dark. I can't see the moon, because there are no windows in this room. Only the three walls facing me and the bedroom door, cracked open to let in a little light from the hallway.

The static from the TV is gone, and I remember where I am as silence stuffs the room around me. Dad's not here, and the television won't be turned on when I go downstairs into the kitchen to get a snack. There's no ocean down the street and across the dunes to sing me lullabies at night. I'm in the spare bedroom in my grandmother's house, my grandmother who doesn't even snore when she sleeps, and it's 5 A.M., not three.

I shove the covers away and my feet sink into the carpeted floor. Everything about this room feels muffled and stuffy. My eyes don't get used to the dark, and I stumble over my clothes on the floor as I reach for the door to go downstairs.

The house is empty and dark and quiet. I look for Oreos in the kitchen cabinet, but there are only crackers and weak tea. I grab the box of crackers and go into the living room to watch TV.

There's nothing on, and there's only one fifth of a sleeve of crackers left in the box. Eventually I finish surfing the channels and leave it on a show about the war in Iraq, resting my head on the armrest of the couch. I know Grandma doesn't like it when I fall asleep in front of the television, but I can't stand to be in my bedroom, in the stuffiness and the silence and the still, still air. She won't say anything when I wake up the next morning. She'll put an afghan on my shoulders, and start making her morning tea.

I stare into the explosions, into the guns and the clouds of blazing desert sand and the people dying dozens at a time.

It's not the same.