The city that never sleeps

The city that never sleeps

         I am the one to speak now, as I don’t think anybody else can. I remain awake after eight days, yet now I feel the horror of sleep tugging at my eyelids. It’s funny, though. I used to be in similar agony because I couldn’t sleep. Now I just wish that I could rest my head for just five minutes… But even that I cannot risk.
         My name Seth Keter, and I have been a chronic insomniac for fifteen years. My insomnia began after I lost my wife Kathy, as a side effect of the vast amount of grief that I repressed. I would suppress the grief all day, and then it would manifest itself upon me at night as I lay down to sleep. And so I would spend hours wandering the suburban streets around my home, wishing that I could just get in some sleep… But it was not to be. At times I could spend days without any sleep at all, and even medication prescribed by doctors often didn’t give me any relief. But I dealt with my problem, and it gave me a lot more time in each day. True, at work I would often be almost unable to keep my eyes open, (and even if they did droop shut I wouldn’t sleep), but I managed to deal with it.
         Now my life depends upon it. I wander Newton City, waiting for sleep to take me. And I am the last. The last one awake…
         I suppose that I should start at the beginning. Or at least the beginning for me.
         Fifteen years after the beginning of my nightly woes, insomnia still affects me. I now have (or had) a night shift job at the printing press as well as working days at the Laundromat, so when the news of the government’s major folly hit the news agencies at four in the morning, I was ready and up right at the place to read the papers, even before they hit stores!
         I still have that newspaper, and this was the article on the front page:

NEWTON CITY RESIDENTS WARNED, DON’T GO TO SLEEP

Government officials of the top-secret military project known as the Rip Van Winkle project have, in the early hours of today, held a press conference detailing the horrendous deaths that have, in the last twelve hours, awaited anyone who has fallen asleep.

I can remember wondering what they were going on about there; I hadn’t heard anything. The article went on:

These officials have reported that a lethal strand of artificial virus, known only as the Krueger strand, has been accidentally let out of its quarantine safe environment in the Rip Van Winkle project, or RVW project, HQ in Peakby. The Krueger strand, if in a hosts bloodstream, RVW leading virologist Bridget Shah said this morning, will cause no harm whatsoever while the said host is awake. Once the host falls asleep, however, they will be vulnerable to the malevolent antibodies the virus exudes. Sleep will equal death.
Ms Shah refused to comment upon what use the RVW project intended to put the Krueger strand to prior to this calamity. Now, RVW officials warn civilians of Newton City that they should refrain from sleeping until the antidote arrives. It is currently in cold storage in Yalta, and will be flown over as soon as possible. The city is being quarantined as of this morning, as the virus itself is believed to be transmitted extremely easily, for example, over the air. In fact, Ms Shah went as far as to say that she believes everybody in the central business district of Newton City may already be infected with the deadly virus. And so citizens of Newton City are urged to keep awake until the antidote can be administered to the city.

That’s pretty much where I stopped reading. You see, I didn’t really believe it. I had always trusted the Annillan government, and this didn’t seem real at all. It was like some hackneyed science fiction book, to be exact!
         But, oh, did I learn. Turns out that all of those in the city that had turned down for the night before the sting started playing and cops started walking around at about two o’clock had died. And all of those that had heard the sting and the cops, but didn’t really believe them.
         When I finished work at about six, I walked out to find the city in chaos. Police tape was everywhere, sirens were blaring, and people were looting shops all down the street. I started walking, pulling my jacket towards me against the cold. It seemed to me that what the papers were saying must be true: everything was in disarray. Thinking about it now, I guess that most people had already gone to bed before the news really hit the crowds. So I guess that about three quarters of the population of that city was already dead! Fuck.
         The people who had been awake were still awake now. Nobody had any intention at all to go to sleep now. Least of all me. For once I was glad of my insomnia: I felt more awake than ever. But the people I saw on the street with me weren’t. They had already been up a whole night, and I could see some of them were beginning to feel sleepy.
         Set up in the middle of Hero Square was a massive stand crowded with people. Coming closer, I saw that it was a stage, and around the stage, people were making and handing out free coffees and espressos. I stood in awe; people were frantically fighting each other just for the coffee! The queue for that caffeine fix was more of an elongated brawl, as people tried to buzz themselves onto a plateau of insomnia, akin to me. Suddenly I thought of an old adage from god knows-where:

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

I guess it was a little like that with me. I had no problem at all staying awake, which was usually my curse, but in this situation, it was the best thing in the world. I guess this adage would be better for the situation:


In the land of the dark, the blind man is king.

Yeah. That was me. The blind king.
Anyway, the sun came up. When it had finally become light enough to see individuals up on the stage, a young woman took to the podium. She addressed us through the microphone, and looking around I realised that most of the survivors of this horrible joke must be crowded into Hero Square. People were pressed in on me on all sides.
         “Hello good people of Newton City!” The lady on the stage called. “My name is Bridget Shah!” That name sparked some recognition from somewhere… And then I had it! This lady was one who started this whole mess! I felt some anger take to my head… But the crowd didn’t seem to realize who this lady was. They applauded her.
         But then she explained who she was, and what had happened. Then the cheers and claps turned to boos and yelled out threats. The lady looked nervous, and began to stand back from the podium, when suddenly a man climbed the stage and ran at her. She screamed and tried to get away, but it didn’t matter. The security had him before he could barely even step towards her. But this seemed to strike a chord in the crowd. Somebody near me yelled out.
         “They can’t get us all!” People yelled in agreement, and before I knew it, I was being pushed with the crowd towards the stage. People at the front climbed the stage, and I saw the security try to hold them back. But it was no use. The security, though beefy and strong, was washed away in the stampede of angry people that chased after Bridget Shah. I was washed along with the mob, and fell to the floor. People stamped on my hands and feet, and I rolled into a ball to wait for them to leave.
         After a while the flood of people thinned out a little. I looked up just in time to see Bridget Shah, almost halfway down the street, trip up on her high heels. And then the angry swarm of wannabe insomniacs engulfed her. I heard ripping sounds and retched as limbs came flying out of that chaotic stream of life.
         I left that area shaking my head. All this violence wouldn’t solve anything, and all we had to do was wait for the cure!
         I continued to wander the streets for the next few hours. But then I saw a group of people huddled around a television. I came into the crowd and pushed through until I could see it. It was the news. A pretty blonde lady was talking. She said that the cure had arrived, and was waiting at the RVW complex in Peakby. They were waiting for the arrival of Bridget Shah, as she was the only one who knew how to administer the antidote. They said that in past she had explained to co-workers that it was the one thing about her invention (the virus) that she was keeping to herself: the way to administer the antidote.
         When I heard this, I didn’t feel anything. I understood the connotations of this. There would be no miracle cure for us. We would die. The people around me obviously hadn’t been at the brutal death of the only chance we had: Bridget Shah. With her, all hope of this ending well had gone. Then I began to sob.
         I returned to my home in the suburbs, and skipped work. I spent the rest of the day staring blankly at the news, as it brought information about more and more deaths in the city. Then my neighbor, an elderly lady named Agatha came knocking on my door.
         “Hi?” I said as I opened the door.
         “Hello, Seth. I’m sorry to trouble you. Its just… I’m all alone in my apartment, and I’m feeling very sleepy…” She sure looked it. I opened the door wider and beckoned to her to come in.
         “Come in, come in. We can keep each other’s company.” As she came through the door, she started crying.
         “What’s the matter, Agatha?” I tried to console her.
         “I’m sorry, Seth. Its Bill.” She said through her tears. Bill was her husband, a wrinkly old man with bad arthritis. She looked up at me with teary eyes.
         “He sat down to watch the news. And when I went over to him, he was… You know…” I nodded and sat her down on the sofa.
         “Its OK, Agatha, he’s gone to a better place, I’m sure.” Her eyelids drooped. “Hey, you need some caffeine, Ok?” She nodded, and tried to smile.
         I went into the kitchen to make two cups of coffee. While I waited for the kettle to boil, I thought about our fate. With no cure, what would happen eventually? I guess we would just fall asleep. When the water was ready, I put in some milk and coffee, and a teaspoon of sugar into each. Then I took them through to Agatha.
         She lay on the couch, stone dead. At first I thought that she was just sleeping, but then I realised that dead and sleeping were now synonymous. And so I drank her coffee as well as mine.
         I eventually started to get cabin fever stuck in my little home with Agatha’s body sitting on the couch. That night I returned to the city.
         On my return to the CBD, the main thing I noticed was that it was far less crowded. Instead, the gutters were in some places lined with bodies. It seemed that people had just laid down on the sidewalk to have a nap…and…
         The people who were still awake were getting desperate. They were muttering to each other about the cure, and its whereabouts. Most people didn’t realize that it was not going to be our salvation…
         It really was depressing, watching the fall of that city. And I lived through it all. The last person I have seen was a teenage girl who was wandering the street, muttering to herself. I tried to talk to her, but she didn’t even seem to see me. I thought about the hallucinations that sleep deprivation can cause.
         That was three days ago. For the last three days I have wandered the city, waiting for the inevitable end. Bit by bit I began to grow more and more tired. And now I am on the brink of sleep. Or the brink of personal extinction.
         Now I am in the cemetery, where they buried my wife, Kathy. I stand above her grave and wait. But then I realize; she is under the ground. I want to say goodbye to her just one last time, before I see her again in heaven.
         And so I find a shovel in the caretakers shack. His body lies still on his bed, maggoty and rotting. I hold my shirt over my nose as I grab the shovel. I try to block the smell.
         And then I start to dig, shoveling away the soft green earth that seems more and more pillowy with each strike into it. And then I am there: at her coffin.
         Using the shovel as a wrench, I manage to finally open it.
         And there she is, as beautiful as ever, even with her lack of skin and muscle. She lies in her fifteen-year-old resting place, and I long for her lively grasp again. And then suddenly, her coffin is a bed. A large comfortable bed. I notice that it is in fact the bed from our honeymoon, when we both lost the virginity that had hovered over us for so long before that. Kathy looks snug in the bed, and she motions to me to join her.
         As I slide into the warm bed, Kathy begins to speak.
         “My parting gift was wakefulness.” She says.
         “I understand now…” I say. “ I was awake, and I saw the fall of man.” I think about how the quarantine of the city probably didn’t work, and how the entire earth probably now suffers from the Krueger strand. “I saw it all, Kathy, I saw it all. I was right there at the end.”
         “You were, honey.” She says, maggots dropping from her eye sockets. “But now its time to go home. To come home to me.” She pulls me into an embrace, and I plant a long kiss onto her skinless jaws.
         “That’s right… I saw it all. I am the last man. I was standing there, right at the end.”
I watch the last sun dip over me and my wife, and let sleep wash over me.

I’m going home.