Dylan Hansen
Roo’s hands shook as she placed them against the mirror. The surface was cold — not the way walls were always cold, but because it was hollow and the air beyond that hollowness was frigid. No, this mirror was cold because she was. Its surface was soft, almost as if she were running her hands over silk.
“Please,” she whispered to the mirror. It wasn’t a casual pleading, nor that of a friend asking another for help. When Roo looked into the mirror, she did not know the woman who stared back. She pleaded to her the way a beggar would a stranger crossing the street. “Please,” she whispered again. Her breath fogged up the glass, concealing the eyes of the woman who stared at her. They were sunken eyes, full like a grave and just as mournful.
“Why am I talking to you?” she asked. The woman in the mirror moved her lips as Roo did, but she would not respond. It was foolish to talk to a mirror, she supposed. But Roo didn’t have the answers to her problems so she thought maybe the woman would.
Her phone buzzed and the glaring light cut across the dark bathroom. She caught a glimpse of her overflowing trash and the plant she’d failed to keep alive, sitting in the corner.
7:00 am her phone read. Roo placed both hands over her eyes so the bathroom was once again covered in darkness. She counted the seconds until her phone screen would shut off.
One.
Two.
Her breath made her palms hot, and her nails dug into her forehead as she tightened her grip on her face.
Three.
Four.
She only had an hour before she had to wake up, and she’d only gotten two hours of sleep.
Her phone should be off now.
Roo removed her hands to find the bathroom once again bathed in shadow. “Tired,” she laughed as if being fully awake was a tangible thing nowadays. The word tired didn’t seem to mean enough. Roo was no longer tired; she was living in a glazed-over world as if she were permanently sleep-walking but without the sleep.
The melatonin she’d taken before bed hadn’t made a difference. Perhaps it couldn’t fight its way through the fog of Adderall and Red Bull that seemed to cover her brain. Too awake to ever fall asleep, too tired to ever be awake. Roo was a walking mattress just hoping to lie down and catch a few moments of rest. But it never came. In an hour she would have to get ready for work, spend ten hours there, come home and do homework, go to school the next day, work the next, and repeat and repeat and repeat.
Roo closed her eyes and the heaviness of sleep locked her lids closed. She gripped the countertop, leaning against the wall next to her. The scent of her lavender hand soap permeated through the walls as if it lived there.
“I should go to bed,” she thought. “But I only have an hour. I am already up, if I go back to sleep now I’m just going to be more tired.” she gave an audible groan and sucked in a breath. “If I am up I could try to finish my essay so I don’t have to do it after work,” she said aloud. “Then I could go to the gym after work. But then I won’t get home until one in the morning and I have an early class tomorrow. But I’ve missed so many gym days. I’ve just been so tired.”
It always felt so lonely when the only thing echoing through a room was her voice. Roo pushed herself off the wall and stumbled into her bedroom. Her blanket was like a warm hug as she wrapped it around herself. “Just an hour,” she said. “Even thirty minutes.”
Her head hit the pillow and she sank deep, deep, deep into the mattress. “If I sleep now, will I have enough time for homework later?” she thought. “There’s too much to do.”
Roo tapped her finger against the silken sheets to stop the buzzing in her head buzzing in and out, in and out, never stopping, never…she was just.
So.
Tired.
If she closed her eyes she could just—
If she thought of the ocean and the way the waves beat the shore. She had to distract her thoughts of school. If she thought about the sea she could—
If she laid flat, or perhaps on her side. The sheets were so soft. It felt like she was melting into her cat—
Roo snapped her eyes open and grunted, a single tear running down her flushed cheeks. Shit. She’d forgotten to change the litter box last night… was it really last night if she never went to sleep?
It was no use. Her brain would not quiet. Perhaps a Red Bull would kick her into high gear.
The covers flew off her legs and she glided to the kitchen, or at least that’s how it felt.
Her feet were too sore to feel the pounding of her weight on the hardwoods. Instead, she felt that pounding in her head. One step and her head raged. Another and her heart skipped a beat.
Another and she thought about all the things she had to get done today.
School. Work. Gym. Cleaning the kitchen before cooking. Taking out the trash to get the pile out of her entryway. Organizing her shoes so she could walk in her entryway. Cleaning her office so she could have space to write her essay.
Her head pounded and her nerves buzzed just thinking about it. Somehow sleep never made it on that list.
The Red Bull tasted bitter as it coated her throat and took a steep drop right into her gullet. She sat in her office chair, spinning back and forth. The seat was warm when she sat down as if she’d never left. A blanket was strewn across the back of the chair. Roo swaddled herself inside it, letting the wool fibers give her little hugs.
As Roo fluttered her fingers over her keyboard, her cat slunk its way through her feet and sat atop her PC. “Get off Archbold,” she said. Archie mewed, annoyed, and flipped his tail at her before not moving and falling asleep on her very expensive computer. Whatever. She didn’t care. At least he was warm.
Roo took another swig of Red Bull as if she were trying to get drunk, not awake. “Ughhh,” she groaned again. She was working a double at the restaurant today. She squinted her face and squeezed her feet in anticipation of the awaiting pain. If her lack of sleep told her anything, it was that customers were going to be assholes today.
“Is it really that busy?”
“I don’t know, does our full restaurant and wait room tell you that?”
“Will it be busy at seven?”
“If I knew the future I wouldn’t fucking be waiting tables now, would I?”
“What’s the house favorite?”
“Probably the item that has a star and says house favorite by it, if I were to guess.”
“Is my table ready yet?”
“Did I call you? Oh no, I didn’t, did I?”
“But why isn’t it ready? We’ve been waiting for twenty minutes?”
“Probably because you’re a table of eight people who don’t have all their people yet. I quoted you an hour and it’s only been twenty minutes!”
Roo shook her head and went to finish her essay when the screen went black. “Archie!” she snapped. “You turned off my PC. Get off.” She shooed Archie away and put a plant in front of her PC so he wouldn’t get on top of it again.
“I can’t focus,” she said. Her phone said 7:20 am. If she had to be up for work soon, she might as well take an Adderall now so she can focus on her homework, and work when she gets there. “Down the hatch.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She slammed her hand on her desk. It was the end of the month. Her paycheck wouldn’t come until next week but rent was due in two days.
“What if I–” she started.
“What if I–” she tried again, but her mind was blank. All she could feel was a void. If someone touched her, they may go right through.
Now she might have to pick up extra hours. She was sick last week, which made her last paycheck low. She had just enough for rent but what about food and cleaning supplies and Archie’s kibbles? But if she picked up more hours, she wouldn’t have time for school or gym…or sleep.
Roo swore caffeine no longer had its effect on her. A Red Bull and an Adderall down and she still didn’t feel awake. Still didn’t feel as if she were even walking in this world. Most days she woke up too late to see the sun. She had night shifts at the restaurant which meant she got to bed later, which meant she got to sleep later and couldn’t wake up early enough to do school and gym before work so she had to do it after but then she got to bed even later and woke up even later and…
A crash startled her. Something damp and grainy shot onto her toe and she jumped. “Archie!” she yelled. His little paw prints went from the carnage of her tipped-over plant,
to the door. “I just need to finish this.” Her voice wavered now, tears blurring her vision. Now she couldn’t see, couldn’t type, her chest was beating.
Roo held her ears, closed her eyes, and tried to block out the world. Why couldn’t it all just pause?
She took a deep breath as the world quieted. It felt like standing in the snow in the dark.
The world was soundproofed, packaged with white fluff. Dark and quiet and still.
Her alarm blared across the room, jolting her. Roo went to the bathroom, placed her hand on the mirror, and looked at the woman who stared back.
Purple bags hung under her eyes, heavy and deep as if they had taken years to carve. Her yellow hair was greasy. It was once blonde but now it looked like she’d expired. She was supposed to take a shower last night and forgot, she could now, she supposed, but she hadn’t stopped by the store last night either, and if she didn’t stop before work, she wouldn’t be able to eat until her break.
Archie meowed at her feet; his nose covered in dirt. He must have been sniffing the plant she’d forgotten to pick back up. Whatever, she’d just close her office door and deal with it tonight. Or tomorrow. Or whenever she remembered. She had an off day in a few days, she could do it then.
“Just stop,” she told herself. Her rose-scented perfume flew off her skin as she waved her hands like a crazy person. “Stop. Stop. Stop. Just get ready.”
She took one deep breath, another, and another.
Roo watched herself as she painted her face with makeup, trying her best to cover her under-eyes. She added a touch of blush so she didn’t look so pale and drained, and added only a small amount of mascara in case she cried later. She didn’t want it to run down her face.
When she was done, Roo placed her hand on the mirror once more. Fingerprints had begun to smudge the glass. She’d have to clean that.
The world was fuzzy as she stared at herself, but her eyes were clear. They were a deep brown with a halo of gold around the pupil. Her round face was framed with oversized glasses and a pink nose ring.
She swore one day she woke up tired and had never felt awake since then. Roo held her second Red Bull, trailing a finger around the top of the can. This was her last one, and she was trying to limit herself to two a day. She should save it for later.
Her second alarm went off. She had to get her shoes on and go, but the entryway was so full of stuff she couldn’t find which ones were her non-slips. She had to leave now if she wanted to get food before.
“Shit,” she cursed, finally finding her shoes. Roo shoved her jacket on, grabbed her work bag, shooed away Archie so he wouldn’t scratch her shoes, and gripped the door handle. Her hand seized and she froze.
She had to go.
Now.
But she froze.
“I can’t do this right now,” she told herself. Her arms shook as the tears threatened to come. “I have to go to work.”
Roo shoved it down. All the stress. And the lists. All her anger.
As much as she wanted to fall apart and stare at the sky until the sky became her, she couldn’t. If she stopped, she may never start again. She had rent to pay and work to do, she had no time to stop.
So Roo shoved it all down and opened the door because she had to.
CLAMOR 