Are You Scared?

Sometimes when I open my eyes, I don’t wake up.

My bed is a prison. My blanket pins me down. To think it once protected me from the monster looming over me. He wants to grin at me with bleeding gums. He wants to ask: Are you scared? But he can’t. He has no head. So he asks with his hands. Hidden behind an overhanging sleeve, cold fingers run down my neck and across my collarbone. I can’t pull away. I can’t breathe under his weight, and I can’t blink. His fingers close around my neck. If only I could breathe, I could choke.

My alarm fires a deafening tone.

The headless man is gone, and so is his weight. I can breathe. I can turn and silence this alarm. My knuckles ache so much, straightening them would make them fall off. If I’m lucky, the stabbing in my hips and calves won’t make it impossible to walk today. I dismiss the alarm. Time to comb my rat’s nest hair and brush my sour-tasting tongue. Time to force breakfast down my sore throat. Two hours until I clock in. I have nothing and everything to fear.

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