The last few weeks, I haven’t slept. I’ve always been chronic for insomnia but I usually stick to reading or listening to music, that kind of thing. I was chatting to a friend of mine in London recently and they told me that when they can’t sleep they go for a walk around the city. There’s something about sitting by the fountains in Trafalgar Square that really soothes them – something about the way the light bubbles around the water; that fleeting moment of strange stillness in a place that is never really still at all.
Well, I live in a village, this little village by the river in rural England. One of those ones that is mostly populated by old people who spent their youth walking to school through seven feet of snow uphill and are determined that you should know about it. There’s a church, a post office, a little shop and a park. That’s your lot. Don’t get me wrong, it does me just fine. I moved here because I like the quiet, after all. But, with the exception of Friday and Saturday nights when the few teens in the village are let out to play for the evening, the village is pretty much dead by 11pm. That’s why I thought I would be OK taking a midnight stroll the next time I couldn’t sleep. It’s not like in London, where I would be terrified of being mugged or worse. You take a walk round a quintessentially English country village at night you are more likely to be harassed by an over-enthusiastic badger than anything else.
Clock strikes three in the morning and I have been awake for hours already. Tried everything I know how to try and I’m at the point of staring at the ceiling with sandpaper eyes, fists clenching and unclenching reflexively, brain running through a zoetrope of images and half-thoughts so quickly that I can barely see them anymore. Stuck in that weird, frustrating state too tired to sleep, too tired to move, but restless, itchy, bones are heavy but skin is crawling. Body feel so displaced and aching without hurting – like a puppet that’s been dropped without thoughts or strings and now has to wait in whatever uncomfortable position it was left in. Brain so numb, so numb but won’t shut up. Force myself to move, have to concentrate and move one piece at a time, all joints stiff, all limbs disconnected. Sit up, sit up and light on and get up and jacket on and shoes on and open door. Just about remember to take my phone as a torch. I step outside and the air is sharp and cool, but not cold, not yet. October autumn chill, not winter frost where the early morning air comes at you like it hates you. Close the door and stand on the doorstep for a moment, filling reluctant lungs with air. In and out. It feels nice, clean, cool, against stale, sweaty non-sleep.
I walk around the village and immediately begin to feel better. The rhythm of walking is soothing and gently pacifies the worst of the onslaught of unformed thoughts into a placated soporific numbness. The village is still, but not unnaturally so, I can hear unseen nighttime creatures scurrying about in bushes, sometimes catch glances of them as they dart about in shadowy corners. Tranquilised, I walk through the churchyard, along the path that weaves through the graves – maybe strange, I know, but I’ve never felt unsafe or spooked there. Nothing moves that shouldn’t move, in daylight or darkness. And I look up, and at the end of the path, just past the beautiful twists of the wrought-iron gates something vaguely human and very, very big passes in front of my vision.
I’m not good with judging heights, but it must have been at least twenty foot tall. Dressed in a black cloak, the hood up around what should have been a face. It moved silently and gracefully, unhurried but with purpose. I thought I must be seeing things. Tiredness, the movement of shadows, tricks of the light. Besides. Soundless things that size do not exist, certainly not at half past three in the morning in little villages.
Blinked. Shook it off. Went to bed. The walk did the trick, slept until it was light.
Saw it the next night. And the next.
I don’t sleep anymore.
All in different places, all moving from shadow to shadow, tree to tree. It either didn’t notice me or didn’t care. But it was definitely real. Doesn’t seem to do any harm and my poor sleep-deprived brain does nothing but freeze. I don’t know if I should be scared. I don’t know what to do. I can’t tell anyone, no one would believe me. Tried to follow it, but it melts into the darkness almost as soon as my eyes can focus on it. By the time I’ve registered what I’m seeing it isn’t there anymore.
Last night, it appeared in the park. It seems to step from nowhere and move soundlessly towards the small wood where a cavalcade of senior citizens walked their inevitably tiny dogs just hours before. Just before it slid between the trees something moved beside it and I realised it wasn’t alone. Another figure, just as tall, glided in and out of the wood, one moment a solid shape against the night sky, the next nothing but a shudder in the air. Yet another, its hooded head bowed in silent greeting; another stoops brushes its hands – does it have hands? – against the treeline before slinking into blackness. I stand, frozen, don’t know if I breathe, if I’m breathing. Remember what I was told to do when feeling panicky or unreal: one thing you can taste, two things you can smell, three things you can touch, four things you can hear, five things you can see.
I can taste my tongue. It tastes coppery and thick.
I can smell the crisp air. The evening’s rain on the grass.
I can touch the ground. I can touch the sleeves of my jacket. I can touch the pads of my index finger against my thumb. I can’t feel anything.
I can hear leaves rustling in the lazy early morning breeze. I can hear a grumpy baby grumbling from somewhere in the depths of the village. I can hear badgers or foxes rustling somewhere in the darkness. I can hear someone’s windchimes tinkling softly.
I can see the moon, big and bright and an almost blinding white tonight. I can see houses filled with blissfully sleeping people. I can see the church, uncanny under the half-light. I can see the outline of the woods, trees unfurling with the energy of the witching hour. I can see more and more strange shapes drifting to the trees, more and more tall, thin, cloaked figures melting into the darkness.
I don’t remember getting home. Some part of me wonders if it is a dream, but it doesn’t feel like a dream. A side-effect of such a severe bout of insomnia, but I have never experienced anything like this before. I don’t know what to do. Or who to tell, if there’s anyone I even could tell. The creatures – people? figures? – don’t seem to mean any harm, but what could they possibly want?
It’s four minutes past ten in the evening. I haven’t slept in two days. Maybe three. No. Two. Three and I wouldn’t be this coherent, wouldn’t be able to think at all, I think. I can’t decide what to do, if I even need to do anything. So, I’m reaching out to you. Tell me I’m not crazy. Tell me what you think. Someone out there must have seen them. If you can help me then please help me. It’s now six minutes past ten in the evening. In four hours and fifty-four minutes I will go outside. I will see them again. And I will decide what to do.
It is now eight minutes past ten. Please. Hurry.