FFM Day 7- Dead Man's Insomnia

     Alexander Randall was having a horrible day. A large dark stain blossomed on his shirt, from his collar to below his naval. His morning coffee had evidently met an unfortunate end. His face had fared only slightly better when it had connected with the glass door.

     Lex wanted to hit things. He called Samantha immediately upon arriving at work, having decided that today was the day he would propose. Samantha did not answer their landline. She did not answer her cell phone.

     Worried, he called her mother. His mother-in-law told him it was time to “seal the deal”, then asked him over for casserole. She also mentioned a really wonderful way of removing “those extra five pounds you’ve got around your waist recently.” He replied by alluding somewhat to his homicidal urges and his currently subdued desire to exercise them on her.

     He called Samantha’s few friends; she didn’t have many. She was skilled at alienation, the same as her mother. For some strange reason, however, she had chosen Lex as her confidant and companion.

     She saved a lot of her rage for the moments they had alone. He would listen, and she would rant. Lex remained quiet and absorbed. It was all he wanted to do. When she was tired she would crawl onto the bed and rest her head on his chest. She would thank him, every time, and she had never once quizzed him on the content of her rages. She trusted him, and he loved her.

     That morning their routine was disrupted. She was so beautiful; he moved to kiss her. She rolled over with a snort and the moment was lost. Still asleep, she pressed her face into the pillow and slid her other arm under the pillow. In a twilight sleep, she scratched her rear. After a few moments she began to snore. He was called in early, and left while she slept.

     Intimacy did not mean unearned passion and beauty. It meant finding passion when, upon waking in the morning, a loved one breathed good morning to you with the breath stench of an ogre who has feasted on road kill.

     Lex left Samantha to her snoring and thought of her on his way to work. He spilled his coffee as he literally walked into work, colliding with the glass doors of the law firm. The stain spread and turned a dark brown as it dried.  

      His tire blew out on the interstate. It wasn’t fair. The driver of the tow truck arrived just in time to take him to the hospital. The dust of the road assaulted his throat; he couldn’t breathe, his heart was being strangled by panic, and someone had poured cement into his chest. He had left his emergency inhaler at the firm.  

     Lex did not feel like being in the hospital. It smelled like someone had injected lemons with bleach. As soon as he was alone, he pulled his clothes out of the plastic sack they had been shoved into.

     “Overreaction,” he said. He pulled on his stained shirt. The faded brown spot bothered him. It didn’t smell like coffee. His mouth was dry and his nostrils burned. He smelled gasoline; he tasted pennies.

     He seized his cell phone and attempted to dial Samantha’s number. He scrolled through the contacts, but her name was missing. He couldn’t remember the number. He pressed call at random and held the phone to his ear. It did not ring, but something that sounded like a pre-recorded message hissed into his ear.

     “Babe…” Samantha’s voice said. “I don’t know where you are, but I’m worried about you. Please call me when you get this, okay?”

     Confused, he checked his voicemail. Nothing. Lex redialed.  

     “I’m scared,” she said. “Call me back. This isn’t like you.”

     Her messages paralleled his own. Maybe he wasn’t the dateline stalker boyfriend he worried he was.

     “Sweetheart,” she said, upon another redial. “Please tell me you weren’t in court today.”

     He hadn’t been. That was yesterday, when he had been defending Kyle Brynt, a brutish man whose wife had been found in a neighborhood dumpster. Lex had decided to screw the case. He felt ill when he thought of Brynt walking free.  

     Somehow, against all reason, Brynt still walked. He tried to attribute Brynt’s freedom to the prosecutor’s ineptitude. Lex had tried to throw it. He had given as weak a defense as he could without anyone realizing. He had done everything he could. Hadn’t he?

     He redialed again. His chest throbbed.

     “They won’t tell me anything,” Samantha’s voice said. She was crying. “You’re in the hospital? They said they took you to the hospital.”

     “They did,” he murmured. Of course, she didn’t respond.

     Something cold brushed past the nape of his neck. Shuddering, he pivoted on his heel. He lost his footing, sliding in something wet. He hit the ground hard, and the phone bounced out of his hand.

     “I just want to hear your voice again,” the phone’s Sam begged. “I’m sorry.”

     Lex struggled to stand, but he slipped again. The fluid surrounded him. He stared at the track his hand made on the linoleum. It was a darkening red, almost black. It was thick, coagulated. It was his.

     “Sam!” he cried out. “Please, something really bad is happening!”

     Her voice stayed silent. The cold thing pressed down on him.

     “Sleep,” a voice said. It sounded like Sam, but wrong. It was too cold, too sterile.

     “I don’t want to die,” he begged. “I tried to throw the case. I didn’t want the bastard free any more than anyone.”

     “Sleep,” the voice instructed.

     “…Am I going to hell?” he asked.

     He was so cold. He wanted Sam to hold him, he wanted coffee, he wanted to be warm again.

     “You’re not going anywhere,” the voice said.

     “I want to die,” he sobbed, curled fetal on the floor.

     “I’m sorry,” the Not-Sam said. “You can’t. But you can sleep.”

     “I want Sam.”

     He could not sleep.