I've always liked lying on my stomach with my right leg bent and pointing toward the wall. My bed is a soft rectangle about my size that has been tucked into the right corner of the room since childhood. There's no place in the world where I feel more unsafe.
There's an old woman in my life who has been in charge of guarding my sleep all these years. A poor, sturdy little woman who has lived for I don't know how long in the next room; there's no separation between us except a doorless frame, barely covered by a sheet that serves as a divider from the territory of her room, still unknown to me.
Every night, when all the lights are off, my grandmother comes into my room just as I've settled in and am ready to close my eyes and drift off to sleep. Behind me, she silently arranges, with imposing care and almost soft noises, a small wooden chair she bought at an auction of old belongings from a nearby daycare center that closed a few years ago. She moves this chair closer to my bed and sits behind me to watch me fall asleep. I barely hear the wood creak as she lets her withered body fall into it.
Lately, I've been having fantasies in which I watch my grandmother stabbing me in the back just as I enter the deepest sleep, as if sleep suddenly leaves me defenseless against any of her plans. I imagine this woman watching my hair fall on my shoulders as I breathe with a tranquility that is unbearable for her. In my dreams, her eyes are always wide open and so bright they illuminate the entire room with pure, dry light, waiting for sleep to capture me and surrender me to her in a final offering.
I have to be honest: I've never been able to pinpoint the exact moment when she takes her chair and goes to her room. I always fall asleep before figuring out what she does when she gets up, before she leaves, or how she decides it's the right time to go and find her own sleep.
She wants to kill me, I know it. She wants to kill me because I won't let her sleep. She plots it in the nighttime hours while she watches my body rise and fall when I breathe without turning to look at her. What have I taken from her that she sits waiting for me to give it back? My sleep keeps her from sleeping, and I've never dared not turn my back on her or stay awake until she's gone, never tried to see her face.
I made the decision, and the day has arrived. I mustered the necessary courage, I grew tired of being watched relentlessly, I refused to share intimate dreams with her gaze, which missed nothing, and, for the first time, I didn't turn my back on her; I decided to stare at her without falling asleep, waiting for her next move. Tonight I fight against sleep and against her. We don't say a word. At exactly 4:07 in the morning, she gets up and, very calmly, takes her chair and leaves. Her eyes finally go out.
The next night, she doesn't return. I anxiously wait for her to repeat this war with the same tricks and finally face her after so many years... but she doesn't return and doesn't make a sound in her room. In the morning, I find her in the kitchen, and neither of us speaks about our nightly obedience. I wait for her again when everything is dark and I'm getting ready for sleep: once again, she doesn't arrive.
Three or four days have passed, and my grandmother hasn't returned to watch over my sleep. I can't sleep; I've disturbed her with my arrogance, and the punishment is that she's stolen my rest. A week passes, and she doesn't appear in the darkness on her tiny throne. I don't sleep and I don't feel like eating, my hair is falling out, and my teeth are starting to crook. I've bathed barely twice this week, and I'm burning with the need to hear her breathe against my neck.
After thinking about it all day, I finally make up my mind to borrow a wooden bench from the kitchen and decide to wait for her in her room tonight to sort everything out. She comes in, puts on her pajamas, and doesn't even look at me. I'm sitting on the bench, waiting for her to take her chair so we can go back to my room together, but she doesn't. She remains motionless in front of her bed, which is tucked into the right corner of the room, then lies back and turns her back to me, bending her leg, pointing it toward the wall.
I stay and watch her sleep, and I don't know if I was there for two or three hours. Time isn't perceived like space. I watch her hair fall on her shoulders and plan to return the next night, and the next, and the next... until she notices me, and wants to see my face again. I still don't believe I'm finally free of her once and for all.
I yawn. Sleep is overcoming me. I take my stool and silently leave his room. I look at the clock; it's 4:07 a.m. I'm doomed.
