News
A Now and Again Note from Andrew Appleby
26/02/2010 09:07:00
Snooze away, snooze away
WHEN I was a only wee thing, tucked up under my eider down, I would lie awake thinking of all the ghosts, ghouls and weird things that would emerge from the wardrobe. In the dark of the frosty nights, the gas lamps on the pavement would cast a yellow beam onto the crack of the slightly open door of the far too stuffed piece of ancient furniture. It stood ominously in the alcove in our bedroom, dominating my twilight vista.
My brother, Malcolm, didn't help things when he sang in a low dirge,
"Who's the Ghost of this House? Who's the Ghost of this House?" This
late night litany would grind in my ears. I lay there, soundless, with
such bulging eyes that my lids would barely shut over them. His tone
always lowered, making the chorus more eerie, more ethereal, more
deathly and spooky. The repeated words had a deeply soporific effect on
him though! He would drift into a deep slumber with a snore like a
death rattle! I would be left wide-awake and rigid with fear!
My only resorts were to face the ghastly furnishing and brave it out or
hide under the quilt amongst the prickly wartime blankets. My slightly
perished teddy-bear hot water bottle and Snowy, my stuffed lamb, would
be my solace and protection from the evil spirits that lurked within.
If my head remained above the dangerous parapet of my downy, then the
shapes of creeping phantoms would accrue in the shafts of the pale
gaslight beams. A shadow from the waving yew tree in the garden could
cast a wicked fingering blackness over the queuing ghouls. I would feel
my heart beat and pound a violent rhythm deep within my blood-curdled
chest! Down under the eider I would go. No longer could I face the
wardrobe whights that had come to drag my soul away!
There, under the army issue bedclothes, the weeping teddy, brave Snowy,
and I would collude to defeat those demons. Whilst planning their
demise or our escape, I would drift into dreams and sleep. In the
morning daylight, the leg of Dad's long johns and the drooping strips
of old parachute silk, sticking out from the doors belied the existence
of the shrouded apparitions of the dreadful night before. But they
would remain there dangling to torment me for other nights!
Even without this torture of spiritual disturbance, childhood insomnia
could take its grim grip! Stupid repetitive thought streams would
interfere with the dream state I so looked forward to. The feather
pillow would slowly compact itself and my left ear would become
compressed into a reddened, sore flap. I felt sure the imprint of the
quills from within my headrest had been indelibly impressed into the
raw gristle of my lug. I would turn to the right for relief and then
later revolve on to my face.
The continuum of ridiculous thoughts had to be abolished! I resolved as
a seven-year-old to stop it! I turned to on to my spine and began
counting backwards down from one hundred. Each number would stop a
conscious nerve ending in my brain doing a 'think!' At around 89 my
cerebral activity would be getting lower. By 74 I'd be drifting and by
69 fast asleep.
My relief at mastering this technique was colossal. When after some
days the recurrence of silly thinks resumed, I could resort back to my
diminishing numbering technique. However, good ideas can wear thin!
They did. I'd descend to nearly forty and the grim repertoire of gloomy
ideas began to gurn round beneath my cranium again. Eventually it did
not matter how many I counted in reverse. My thoughts ignored the
backwards numeracy. They took over and obliterated the minus factor,
which had lulled me to sleep on previous nights. All had been lost!
Later on I found that my fondness of ancient history was useful. When
flights of monotonous fancy took grip of my brain I employed my
passion. For hours I'd be thinking around an insoluble problem, like
how to trap bats or skin a worm. Becoming weary of these wakening
dreams I took to laying supine in my bed. I would place my hands across
my chest and exhale slowly. I would then imagine I was a mummified
pharaoh. Each gentle respiration would see me deeper in the blackness
of the after world. This was very satisfactory for a while until I
began to count the dynasties and work out which one I belonged to.
Shutting out my dynastic gymnastics was not simple! I had to imagine
the dark sky with a pattern of stars forming a pyramid. I switched each
one out in my mind's eye until the last one at the very pinnacle
plinked off. That is when I knew no more and wakened millennia later to
a nice cup of tea and a custard cream.
<ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZ>
It is now 2010 and Sigrid and I are in our 17th year of wedded harmony.
It is strange, though, how sometimes sleeplessness may grip either one
or the other. It may be my snoring. (Which I maintain actually to be a
complete myth.) It may be what I call Sigrid's 'sleep breathing,' that
keeps me conscious. However, just a gentle nudge can divert the
repetition of the audibly somnolent respiration. One can then drift
swiftly back to dormant chasms of dreams.
On occasions, Sigrid suffers from SChORTS (Symptomatic chronically
obsessive repetitive thought syndrome). There are knockout drugs for
this, but it is generally too late in the night to swill one back! Cups
of tea, midnight feasts, and bouts of reading can effect relief. But
the persistent regularity of these sessions can be so wearisome and
debilitating.
I sympathise so much with this. It relates to exactly what I had
suffered from in my tender years. I then gave Sigrid some of the
exercises that I employed. I'm afraid the reverse counting was a
failure. Being of a Scandinavian descent, my sweetheart does her
numeracy in Danish! She counted out loud and I could not stand the
suspense of what was coming next! Then I had all the guttural sounds of
Danes digits swimming in my dreams. We abandoned that course of action
abruptly.
Sigrid did not fancy being a Mummy at all. She prefers the Viking way,
and a burning ship is far too exciting a phenomenon do induce slumber.
"Shall I tell you a story?" I asked gently.
"Yes please," she replied, "but make it dull and boring." I pondered.
Sigrid nudged me. "Have you gone back to sleep?" she demanded.
"No dear, I just can't think of anything boring." I noted a feeling of
surprise in my darling's tone, but it was not pursued. Then my tale
began. "I'm going to tell you about Bobbie!" I told her.
"Bobby?" She asked. "Surely not Bobby that will keep me awake!"
"No Bobbie." I replied. "Bobbie the Light Bulb!"
"OOOOOoooooooooooohhhh." Sigrid remarked from her dented pillow.
"Once upon a time and long, long ago," I began, "there was a little
light bulb called Bobbie." I said the words quite slowly in a low tone
to induce soporifics. I felt Sigrid nod. "Bobbie was connected into the
cabin of an old, old fishing boat named Maureeeen." My monotone was
having its soothing effect. "One dark, dark night the little boat came
quite loose from her moooooorings."
"Boorings?" Sigrid suggested snoozily.
"Moorings." I repeated in the dullest of ways.
"Aaaaaaahhh." Sigrid yawned.
"Well." I said with utter flatness "Maureeeeeen, drifted far, far out
to sea. So far that Bobbie's tiny beam could no longer be seeeeeen."
I heard a deep breath.
"Then, poor Maureeeeeen's bilges burst." I told Sigrid softly. "She
began to slowly sink." I added sleepily. "She rolled to one side and
Bobbie's glimmering light spluttered out."
You can tell when someone next to you is becoming totally relaxed, can't you.
"Then poooor Maureeeeen slipped under the waves and went down. Down,
down and down. Eider down. Deep down. Dee-eeper do-own. She ju-ust went
down. Down to the bottom. Down to the bed: To the seabed with the
slowly swimming fishes in the waving weeds. There she rested and rested
and re-st-ed and re..."
The deep, even, slumbering breathing of my dear one was a testament to the tale.
The final passage I recited so slowly, so dully, so sleepily.
My arm had got pins and needles and so had my brain. I turned and slept soundly.
At 08.01, just after Radio Orkney, Sigrid asked, "What happened to Bobbie?"
"I'll tell you tonight." I assented then added. "But only if you're good."
Night-night each.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Andrew.
And stories about light bulbs were not really inspiring enough to stay awake for.