For ages, I had a light in my bedroom that came on just before dusk, and I’ll tell you why.
When I was a kid, I figured out all by myself that the night monsters have to come in between dusk and when you go to bed. That’s the only time, right? They’re never under the bed or in the closet during the day. It's not that they're that good at hiding. They just aren’t there. I know.
I spent a lot of my youth up to that point looking for them. I waited and watched during the day, staring under the bed or in the closet with a flashlight for seemingly forever, just to get the tiniest hint that there was something there. I’d do ambush checks, creeping in slowly, then bursting into the closet or dropping down to the floor. There was never anything in either place during the day. Never ever. Clearly, they had to come in from some place else, and it had to happen when the room was dark. I was almost nine when I realized this, and the first thing I spent my birthday money on was a bedroom lamp and a photoelectric switch to turn it on at sunset.
That light did its job for years. It wasn’t really necessary in college because there was always a light somewhere, and always activity. It doesn’t take much to realize that dorms aren’t prime feeding zones for monsters, at least not the non-human kind. I’ve been in my own apartment the past five years, though, and my ritual from childhood is back in place, since day one.
One handy thing about the lamp was that it had other, more social uses. Dates and girlfriends appreciated the fact that, if or when we moved into the bedroom, they didn’t have to stumble through the dark, tripping over shoes and laundry baskets and other random stuff. One girl I went out with thought it was presumptuous, but she didn’t last long for other issues.
As I said, the light did its job just fine – until the past two months or so.
The monsters have gotten smarter.
At first, I figured the photo switch was going bad, maybe overheating. It would come on as the outside light faded, then randomly, it would just turn itself off between dusk and bedtime. It didn’t happen a lot – just twice in the first month – but after the second time, I replaced the switch. Just a faulty switch. Things wear out, y’know. Both times, I checked out the bedroom. I always checked things out. Always.
So I went down to Home Depot and got a new switch, and I got a spare. Things wear out, right?
The first week or so after the new switch, everything was fine. Then, on the ninth night, it came on at dusk like it should and then went off maybe an hour later. I didn’t notice right off because my arm chair wasn’t right in line to see the bedroom, but I realized it when I got up to pee. I turned the switch back on, fiddled a little, and then left the room. It stayed on until I turned it off at bedtime.
The next day, I got smart and moved my couch and TV around so I could see into my bedroom in my peripheral vision. It didn’t give the living room great Feng Shui, but hey …
It turned off again two days later, about an hour and a half after sunset. I reset it again and left it. Maybe thirty minutes later, off to that side, things went dark, but then flared up again before I could even turn my head. That night, I turned my couch and TV so that I could look almost directly into my bedroom from the living room. I would see anything that happened with the bedroom lights. That definitely screwed up my Feng Shui.
The switch behaved itself for a week, then it went off right after dark the next night. I went in, turned the overhead light on, and swapped out the new switch with the new spare switch. I checked under the bed and in the closet. All clear.
The next day was Saturday and I was feeling clever. I decided that after all my fiddling, the problem had to be something with the lamp. It was the same lamp I'd had as a child. I'd retrieved it from my parents' lawn sale in my sophomore year of college. The thing was already almost fifteen years old.
That was the answer. There were no monsters in the room. The only thing threatening my sacred and reassuring night ritual was the old, crappy lamp itself. The piece of junk was probably shorting out the photo switch in some way. So, I went to Target and bought a brand new lamp, with a simple on-off toggle. It was kind of expensive, so I hoped it would be higher quality and more reliable.
For the next five days, I felt pretty proud of myself. On the fifth night, the lamp again went off not long after dusk. I did the whole routine of resetting, checking spaces, etc. Same old thing.
The next night, I got more curious, so I experimented a bit. I left the lamp plugged into the switch, but I also turned on the overhead light when I got home from work at six o’clock. The lamp came on at 6:47, and darkness was full by 7:13. At exactly 7:22, the lamp went out. Eight seconds later, the overhead light went out. I waited a few minutes, gathered up a flashlight and a backup - and my nerve - then went to the room. The overhead light switch was off. The photo switch was off, though the toggle on lamp itself was turned on. Just enough to make the light go away.
I turned it all back on and sat and watched from the living room. The overhead light went out in about ten minutes and the lamp, seconds after. I turned it all back on and took the photo switch out of the mix, just to see. In twelve minutes, the overhead light went out and then the lamp followed.
I slept on the couch that night and left all the lights on in the apartment.
The next morning, I left the apartment and stayed at a cheap hotel for a week, re-gathering my nerve.
I came back to my apartment this morning. I had a lot of time to think calmly about what was going on. As much as I wanted to move, I had to wonder if they wouldn’t just follow me. I knew for sure I’d lose the lease deposit and my last month’s rent, which I couldn’t afford to just let go of.
While I was out of the apartment, I decided, for the time being, to concede the bedroom. Until I could think of something better, they could have it. If I wanted to sleep in there, I’d do it in the daytime only. Otherwise, at night, I’d sleep out on the couch. It was a good, comfortable couch. I could adapt. Plus, the feet were only about an inch high, which limited what I could imagine hiding underneath. On top of that, the living room itself had no closets or cabinets, doors, drawers, boxes, bins, baskets – anything of that sort. There was nowhere for anything to skulk, aside from the tiny space between my arm chair and the wall. I turned the chair at an angle, so there was virtually no shadow alongside it.
It wasn’t going to do anything for my sex life, but I was between girlfriends anyway. Any random encounter would have to take place during the day or anywhere but the bedroom. With any luck, I’d sort this out before things got more pressing.
I made myself a good dinner to help feel more like I’m back home, and had a couple of beers with it.
So that much was settled. I had the couch. They had the bedroom. We could keep things separate. My electric bill would go up because I’d have virtually all of my lights on in the rest of the apartment for the foreseeable future, but it was a smaller price to pay than losing my deposit and last month’s rent.
I felt so good I had another beer.
When I finally laid down at 11:30, I was as happy as a well-intoxicated man with monsters in his bedroom could be. I had the lights to protect me, even if the monsters were closer. I’d been too busy just dealing with them to actually realize how long it had been since I’d felt them so close. Sure, they had always been around, but always outside the doors and windows. I saw to it. I was still in charge and had been since I was nine.
Anyway, the couch was cozy enough for the short term. What more could I ask? I pressed the side of my head into the pillow and looked down the long hallway. My eyes were nearly closed and my brain nearly gone when some perverse streak made me do a childlike wave and call out a whimsical “Nighty-night, monsters. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite!” The humor made me feel a little better.
In an instant, my eyes closed, and in the very next instant, I heard a click.
I opened my eyes to see that the bedroom overhead light had gone off. The lamp followed within seconds. There. Alright. Both lights were off, the ritual was done, and now we could all get a decent night’s rest, the monsters and me.
Except – before I could get my eyes shut again, the hallway light went out.
It was followed by the bathroom light, both of them, actually – first the vanity light then that overhead.
Then went the spare room light followed by the light to the closet.
Next, the dining area, and after that, the sink light in the kitchen, followed by the vent-a-hood light over the stove, and then the main overhead light.
The light over me, the last one in the apartment, had three bulbs in a fixture. The light went out one bulb at a time. Blip … blip … … … blip.
They were having fun at my expense. The last one flickered for a moment, as though it had the will to resist, as though it had some choice in the matter.
And then, we were all together in the dark.
It was so very dark.
No comments:
Post a Comment