night terrors
16 November 1999

Early, early in the morning on a day last week, the kind of morning that is still considered night in some social circles, I awoke from a nightmare with the most liquid-nitrogen cold terror running through my veins. I uprighted myself to a sitting position and took several shallow breaths. Everything in my sight was washed in a granular slate blue color, illuminated by the street lamps pouring through the front window. As I breathed, the nightmare rewound and began to play again, this time cutting through the reality of my conscious mind. Like most nightmares, it wasn't frightening this second time around, but instead nonsensical and random.

But I couldn't shake the fear.

I swung my feet over the side of the bed and bent down to rest my chin on my knees. I tried to make myself small and insignificant, to clear my head of the fear that clung like low-settling fog.

When that didn't work, I walked over to the bathroom and flipped on the overhead light. The light flooded the tiny room and the noise from the fan above whirred irregularly, too loud for this quiet time of night. I stepped closer to look at myself in the medicine cabinet's mirror, my curls askew, face framed by L.A. Michael's postcards. And with one glimpse I saw something lying just below the surface of my blotchy olive skin and peering out from behind my glassy, paralyzed eyes.

Candor creeps up on my face in moments of extreme vulnerability. In that mirror, I saw a face unmasked and it initiated more alarm than a lifetime of nightmares. Pure realizations flooded my consciousness, volleying back and forth in my brain. The justifications and stories and perceptions that get me through each day had vanished, replaced with an honesty so foreign and unfamiliar. I was at ground zero. My chaotic layers peeled and burning at my feet, leaving the naked core shivering, unprotected, and scared.

I stepped backwards, left hand reaching out for the switch to cut the power to the overhead light. In an instant I was standing amid darkness and quiet again.

I couldn't return to bed right away. Instead I curled up on my couch, knees to chin, and stared out my window at the cars parked in front of my apartment, the leaves that were wedged between my flower box and window screen, and the few faint stars that loomed over the house across the street. And one quiet, realized thought pulsated in my head, but refused to materialize.

Until last night.

Last night I found that thought parading among the grounded descriptions and witty dialogue of Miss Wyoming. And the fact that Douglas Coupland can flesh out my thoughts with unfailing precision is why he continues to rock my world.

Who rocks your world?