If you’re an insomniac like me then you’re all too familiar with the drill: lay in bed for eight hours or more, get at most a couple hours of sleep, wake up feeling more tired than when you went to bed, rinse, and repeat until your body stops hating you for a while. For me, these episodes usually only lasted for a couple of weeks, and they didn’t really phase me at this point. It had never gotten bad enough for me to see a doctor, and I wasn’t in any hurry to start a sleeping pill addiction either way.
However, after moving to a quiet little town in Montana named Choteau, I finally broke down and saw a local physician about my sleeping troubles. It had been three months since I moved there, and I was lucky if I averaged two hours of sleep a night in those three months. Sure, at first, I just amped up my productivity at work by taking advantage of my wakefulness, but my enthusiasm died off after the first month. At this point, I was ready for a fistful of Ambien and the best night of sleep in my life by the time I made it to the doctor.
As is tradition in small towns like Choteau, there was only one doctor’s office, and only one doctor was available to see me. I’ve never been great with names, and for the life of me, I certainly can’t remember his. We only spoke for about five minutes anyway. Come to think of it, I can’t picture what he looked like either—just a fuzzy shadow. Oh well, insomnia will do that to a person’s memory.
Besides, the biggest thing that stands out to me is how annoyed I was that he had wasted my time. I came to that man desperate for sleep, for some relief, and instead of some actual prescription medication, he says, “Ah yes, we find that a lot of newcomers struggle to sleep when they first arrive here. Although, I must admit no one has been more stubborn than you about coming in for a visit. They usually last a couple of weeks at most.” As he shuffled through the last cabinet in the room he sighed and excused himself for a moment.
Thankfully, the doctor wasn’t gone long, but when he returned, I could immediately feel the fire of anger running through my veins. “This ought to do the trick.” He said as he handed me a bottle of supplements, yes supplements. “That there may not look like much, but it’s made from the roots of a tree that only grows in the forests just outside of town, and it’ll fix you right up.” He paused for a moment and grinned, “I can see you don’t believe me, but just give it a try—no charge. We can’t have newcomers fumbling around in a sleepy daze. If you need anything else, feel free to call us anytime.”
He walked me out of the room, pointed me to the exit, and said, “You’ll find the exit to our office far easier to find than the road out of town. Welcome to Choteau.”
As I walked out, or should I say stormed out, of the doctor’s office all I could think of were the stupid little pills that quack of a doctor had just given me for a very real episode of insomnia. I threw the pills in my bag and raced over to the local hospital to get some real care and to report Dr. it’ll fix you right up for trying to get one over on someone new to town. To my dismay, however, the hospital gave me a similar line of bs, “Oh, we hear this all the time. Seriously, those supplements are exactly what you need.”
Feeling irritated and stubborn as ever, I pushed through another week of barely any sleep, but I was finally getting to the point where I couldn’t push through work anymore. All I wanted to do was lay in bed all day, so I finally broke down and took a closer look at the pills given to me by the local quack. Take one pill by mouth. “Great directions,” I thought to myself. One every how often? Whatever, I was too tired to care, so I threw one in my mouth, washed it down with water and… And I woke up the next morning having slept for nearly twelve hours. A feeling of relief washed over me as I realized the local medical staff weren’t trying to pull one over on me, and it did fix me right up. Part of me felt bad for getting so angry with them, but I put it in the back of my mind and went about my day.
Nighttime rolled around again, and I found myself sleepily crawling into bed at around 8 o’clock. The pills crossed my mind, but I figured it was worth trying to sleep on my own before relying on a local “supplement” to solve all my sleeping troubles. Admittedly, a part of me still didn’t trust it.
I awoke just as refreshed as the previous day but dread quickly flowed through my mind as I looked at the clock to see 9:00. Even without my glasses I knew it had only been an hour since I went to bed—it was still dark outside. As I put on my glasses and looked at my phone again my heart began to race a little. My phone read 9:07 AM, not PM. Yet, it was still dark as night outside. I rushed over to my window expecting, hoping to see the darkest storm clouds of my life, but there was nothing but darkness. There were no people, no cars, not even any streetlights. It was as if my house had gotten sucked into the vacuum of space.
Flicking the light switch on the other side of my bedroom filled me with another pang of fear as the lights remained off. “Maybe a massive storm just rolled through, and all the power went out.” I thought to myself, attempting to calm my anxiety. I grabbed my phone, and to my relief, the flashlight turned on. Unfortunately, that relief was short-lived as I lit up my room and noticed a man—well, more like the shadow of a man—standing in the corner of my room closest to the bed. I ran out of the room almost immediately, but I can still remember the impossibly tall shadow of a man wearing what appeared to be a trench coat and a fedora.
Not even bothering to grab a pair of shoes I grabbed my keys as I bolted out the door and ran to my car. It was still dark outside, but it wasn’t the nothingness black that I observed from my bedroom window. “Did I misread the time? Did I even see that shadow?” As I questioned myself, I looked at the time again and saw 11:00 P.M. Pausing for a moment, I began to question if I was even awake at this point. I could see mistaking AM for PM right after waking up, but how could an hour have passed? These thoughts, and all rationality, jumped out of my mind as I looked up and once again saw that shadowy figure appear in front of my headlights. It seemed to be growing with every passing moment, climbing higher and higher up the walls of my two-story townhouse.
In a panic, I threw it in reverse, stepped on the gas, and rocketed out of my driveway. Thankfully, there was nothing behind me, nor was anything in front of me as I threw it in drive and rocketed out of town. You’ll find the exit to our office far easier to find than the road out of town. “Yeah, screw that, and screw this place!” I yelled out loud to myself as I raced down the road out of town.
That feels like forever ago now. I could tell you how long, but my stupid clocks won’t work, and all I know is I can’t wait to reach the next town and finally get some rest. The thought of pulling off and sleeping in my car has crossed my mind, but these stupid country roads are far too narrow for that.
Finally, I think I finally see some lights up ahead. Yes, the next town—no, no it can’t be! That’s not possible, how can I be back in the same place?! I know I haven’t taken any turns in the past however many hours I’ve been driving. Whatever, I’m too tired to care at this point. I might as well just go home, take those stupid pills, and pass out. Thankfully, my house isn’t too far from the entrance to town.
Hold on, what’s with all the emergency vehicles? Oh, they’re at my house. Good, they must have caught that creep who caused me to run out of my house in the middle of the night. Good grief, was there a shootout or something? Police, ambulance, and even the coroner. Well, I better walk up and tell them what I know.
“Yeah, his work called in a welfare check—said they hadn’t heard from him in a few weeks.” the chief of police said in a somber tone to the local news reporter. As the young man was scribbling in his notepad the local coroner/doctor chimed in, “I recon the hat man must’ve gotten to him. Shame he decided not to take the supplements I gave him. The human body can only go so long without sleep.”
“Hey! I live here! What’s going on?!”
“Hello?! Anybody going to acknowledge—”
No. Nononono. That can’t be me! This must be some kind of sick joke. I’M RIGHT HERE.
“Come on, doc. I know you’re old, but don’t you think it’s time to retire the ole trench coat and fedora getup?”
“What can I say, chief? I’m a hat man.”