Sleepwalking

I stood in front of my dresser. My son’s small dresser sits on top of it and I reached over the top. In the back against the wall, there was a cabinet in the wall. A small, foot and a half by foot and a half cabinet with two doors that swung out, lay hidden in the wall. I’d never seen this cabinet before.

I’m reaching, stretching and over reaching. I’m not able to get to the back of the dresser to get into the cabinet. I only know there was something in there I needed to get to. There was a sense of urgency. Whatever was in the cabinet was important.

The next thing I know, a siren is going off. I jump and look over my shoulder then realize I’d just woken myself up and I’m sleepwalking.

I had knocked off a toy UFO; it was making the obnoxious sound. I stand there for a moment with my arms still on top of the dresser, ready to begin search for the hidden item again.

Then I moved into action and dived to the floor to get the toy to shut up. In the middle of my scramble, my husband climbs out of bed. “What are you doing?” He asked.

“Trying to get this stupid thing to stop making noise.”

“Why?” He stands behind me and leans over to help. “Did it fall off the dresser?”

“I knocked it off.” Finally, I get the stupid thing to be quiet. “I was sleepwalking.”

“Okay.” He mumbles and stumbles his way back to bed.

I stand in the dark with the toy still in hand, confused more than ever as to what possessed me to look for something hidden in a nonexistent hole.

 

 

 

I still don’t know what I was trying to find, but I can tell you that the toy UFO is now stuffed in the back of the closet and, to date, there hasn’t been another episode of searching for an unknown object in the wall.

This odd occurrence led to the idea of a short story series. More to come from that.