Not a real one. Not in the sense you’re thinking. I really sleep in a bed with fake cotton sheets and two pillows, one of which bears extensive stains from twenty years of supporting my drooling face. My bedframe is made of fake wood from IKEA that creaks and clatters when the mattress sees action.
No, the reason I say I sleep in a sarcophagus stems from the idols I hang around the bedframe.
Twenty years ago my family lived in a derelict apartment building at the edge of Aberdeen, overlooking the highway exit that became our main strip, Broad Street. The building looked condemned from the outside; rusted fire escapes, dilapidated support beams, disintegrating brick walls. Inside wasn’t much better. Wallpaper peeled, pipes leaked, lights flickered. My family’s floor was the exception. Each floor of the building was divided into halves, each half contained four multibedroom units. Every unit on our floor was inhabited by another branch of the family. Our walls were freshly painted, our carpets stainless, the tile swept. Our room was the first door out of the elevator on the east side of the third floor, or 3E1. My uncles lived in 3E2 and 3E3. 3E4 was locked. No one lived in 3E4, and no one was allowed to enter it, listen at the door, or even talk about the empty room. I lived with two sisters, with our uncles were another seven cousins. As young kids, we never questioned the rules about 3E4. We also never questioned why we all lived with our fathers and had no mothers.
Our ignorance wouldn’t last.
As we grew older, rules that seemed straightforward began to feel strict. When she was in the sixth grade, my older sister Salma attended a friends birthday party on the condition she return before dark. My father worked late at the automechanic he co-owned with his brothers, and returned home at sunset to find she still wasn’t home. He was furious. I’d never heard him raise his voice before, but that night he shouted until spittle flew from his mouth. We received a call from Salma on our old corded landline. No matter how much she apologized, how much she cried, father refused to allow her to return home. She would either have to convince her friends to allow her to stay the night despite not being invited to, or she could sleep at father’s garage. I never forgot what he gave as the reason why she couldn’t return home.
It would be safer on the street.
Over the next three years, we struggled under the confines of 3rd Floor East. When we asked questions, we were silenced. When our friends asked questions, we were homeschooled. All the while, the mystery of 3E4 ate at our minds. In the rare moments where no sirens sounded or pigeons squawked in Aberdeen, when the city held a rare silence, we could just barely make out the sound of faint whispers that emanated gently from the air ducts. At the forbidden door we could just barely make out rhythmic scraping, like someone shaping bricks with a knife. Our final incident came on an August night the day before I would have entered high school. Three loud slamming sounds echoed from the hall. Our father dismissed us. Our uncles dismissed their children. No such sound occurred, they said, avoiding our gaze while they made breakfast. But we knew what we heard. My sister said it sounded like a drum. My cousin Aten said it sounded like a drum. But I heard something more. It sounded like an inanimate voice. That day, while our fathers were at the garage, the children of the third floor made a decision. By any means necessary, we would enter 3E4.
The last thing I remember is lining up by the door.
I sleep in a sarcophagus. Not because my bed is an intricately carved coffin dedicated to Tutankhamun. Because for almost fifteen years I have slept with twelve idols hanging from my bedframe. Hours after we decided to open the door of 3E4, I woke up in bed soaked with sweat to the sound of my father crying. My room smelled like cigarettes. Moonlight poured into my bedroom, lighting the smoke in a white glowing haze. A dripping sound to my right drew my eyes, and I found that most of my bedroom ceiling and walls were soaked with some kind of leak. I reached instinctively over to my bedside lamp, only to find it smashed to pieces. The leak dripped onto my hand, and I held it up to the moonlight to get a better look. It was blood. My father was seated in a chair in the corner of the room. His white undershirt was stained dark, which I tried to convince myself was oil. He spoke to me for eleven minutes.
I never saw him again.
He explained nothing about room 3E4. He explained nothing about the blood on the ceilings and walls, the chairs and tables stacked outside my door, or about my uncles bodies torn to pieces in our kitchen. Instead, he handed me a dozen wooden idols, forced me to memorize their names, and told me I could never again trust my brothers and sisters. I’ve still never slept in a friends’ home. A lover has never spent the night with me. How could I explain why I have a dozen figures made of stained acacia wood? Why I hang carvings of a woman with the head of a dog or a man with scorpion arms? I don’t go to sleep to the sound of someone I love’s breathing. Instead, I fall asleep to the sound of faint whispers and rhythmic scratching.
And footsteps.
The footsteps of my idols coming to life. Each night when I close my eyes the scratching becomes a whir. The first few times I was horrified. I stared in terror as men and women with dog heads, scorpion arms, and serpent tails emerged from my idols. Each night, they faced outwards in a protective circle. Overtime, I grew less terrified by my idols. I spoke with them. Touched them. Now, I know them better than I know most people. I trust them with my life. It’s a necessary arrangement, because somewhere outside that protective circle, beyond my touch or sight or ears, I feel a darkness. A darkness unleashed when the children of the 3rd Floor broke into Room 3E4. For now, I sleep in a sarcophagus. But soon, I will find the darkness.