In Sickness and
In Health
by Aaron Troye-White
I've woken up
in a lot of strange places and this one tops the
list. Once, I came to on a Westbound train, in
the middle of Uttar Pradesh. I live in Cleveland.
I've opened my eyes to find myself off the coast
of Lake Baikal, bobbing in an orange life vest,
warm in a skintight wet suit. I've awoke mid-coitus.
It wasn't Charlene, but some Korean woman. I
forced my eyes shut and made it all a dream. My
wife regarded it so.
My
sleepwalking is far from innocuous and I sleep a
long time. Lucky somnambulists flicker their
lights, check stove nobs, or power through boxes
of their kid's Lucky Charms. Me, I steal Buicks
or stumble into illegal Peruvian gambling rings.
I've been everywhere, yet I've experienced none
of it.
Then there are
mornings like today, sixty stories up, lying on
the steel beam of an unfinished skyscraper,
looking over mist-draped green mountains. My neck
is stiff and cold. My legs dangle over oblivion
and the unseen swish of the cars passing
underneath.
Yet, there's a
blanket on top of me.
I smell
cigarette smoke and turn behind me. My wife,
Charlene, leans against a vertical beam, taking
it all in. She's giving me that look, eyes
squinting with a suppressed smile.
“Morning,
dear,” I say.
“Good
morning, love. Sleep well?”
“'Same as
always.” I scoot carefully along the beam
and reach for a drag of her cigarette. “Thanks
for taking care of me again.”
“Don't
have a choice, do I? Sickness and health and all
that shit.” She takes the smoke back.
“How'd I
get up here?”
“You don't
want to know.” She hugs me between her legs.
“Sleep-you has a flair for the romantic.”
Before us is
the purple sky. And here we sit, inside a sunrise.
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