Counting Sheep
By M.R. Carter
It’s 11:04 p.m. on a Tuesday. I have just been tucked into bed. I lie awake, in silence, wide eyes reaching through the dark. I can hear the TV in a distant room boasting the laugh track from some sitcom rerun. Alone in this room, there are no toys or jams to adhere to, just an empty swallow in the back of the throat. I check the clock in regular timings – it reads 11:47 p.m.
I don’t hear the TV anymore. It’s been ten more minutes. In the seeping light of the door, there are shadows of legs and body, ready to enter. It’s Buscia. She wants to know why I am still awake. Though, I’m not sure how she knows I am inside this darkness.
She tells me, “Good boys always go to bed early. Nothing productive ever comes of the late night. Good night.”
More hours pass and there is nothing left to swallow. I dream into the nite-lite protruding from the wall and catch the glares from my secretious tears. Streaming each strand from my vision as a life line outside of this hell. The light from under the door has disappeared but I can hear footsteps and a clearing of the throat.
“Why are you still awake?”
A growl to her voice, her tone like a free fall– instant nausea. The door knob is fiddled with and she enters upset.
“I told you, only good boys fall asleep at the right hour. Why must I remind you? If you cannot sleep, then you will have to count sheep.”
She sighs in disappointment but she was serious and I took her seriously. To a six-year-old who thought it of monumental importance to listen to and respect their elders. So I lie there, wide-awake with see-through-the-dark eyes, I envisage these fluffy creatures in a tremendous cluster. One by one they separate from the herd and fall off a cliff. Each fallen sheep is counted as one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, they keep falling and I just keep counting and if I look at them as a whole again they fluff bigger and produce more lemmings to follow the other 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76 sheep so far with only my limited reach of number knowledge translated to laying here and passing out before 100.
- - -
A dreamer, a wanderer, an activist, a connoisseur. A singer, a poet, an explorer, a self-taught musician. M. R. Carter was born in Olney, Maryland and currently lives, humbly, in an apartment, in the Appalachian hills of Hagerstown, Maryland. He considers himself a working-class hero. He has never pursued a higher education, career or full-time employment. His writings have appeared online and in print.
By M.R. Carter
It’s 11:04 p.m. on a Tuesday. I have just been tucked into bed. I lie awake, in silence, wide eyes reaching through the dark. I can hear the TV in a distant room boasting the laugh track from some sitcom rerun. Alone in this room, there are no toys or jams to adhere to, just an empty swallow in the back of the throat. I check the clock in regular timings – it reads 11:47 p.m.
I don’t hear the TV anymore. It’s been ten more minutes. In the seeping light of the door, there are shadows of legs and body, ready to enter. It’s Buscia. She wants to know why I am still awake. Though, I’m not sure how she knows I am inside this darkness.
She tells me, “Good boys always go to bed early. Nothing productive ever comes of the late night. Good night.”
More hours pass and there is nothing left to swallow. I dream into the nite-lite protruding from the wall and catch the glares from my secretious tears. Streaming each strand from my vision as a life line outside of this hell. The light from under the door has disappeared but I can hear footsteps and a clearing of the throat.
“Why are you still awake?”
A growl to her voice, her tone like a free fall– instant nausea. The door knob is fiddled with and she enters upset.
“I told you, only good boys fall asleep at the right hour. Why must I remind you? If you cannot sleep, then you will have to count sheep.”
She sighs in disappointment but she was serious and I took her seriously. To a six-year-old who thought it of monumental importance to listen to and respect their elders. So I lie there, wide-awake with see-through-the-dark eyes, I envisage these fluffy creatures in a tremendous cluster. One by one they separate from the herd and fall off a cliff. Each fallen sheep is counted as one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, they keep falling and I just keep counting and if I look at them as a whole again they fluff bigger and produce more lemmings to follow the other 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76 sheep so far with only my limited reach of number knowledge translated to laying here and passing out before 100.
- - -
A dreamer, a wanderer, an activist, a connoisseur. A singer, a poet, an explorer, a self-taught musician. M. R. Carter was born in Olney, Maryland and currently lives, humbly, in an apartment, in the Appalachian hills of Hagerstown, Maryland. He considers himself a working-class hero. He has never pursued a higher education, career or full-time employment. His writings have appeared online and in print.
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