Sleep

pl7_371514_fnt_trI woke up in the dark, my iPad a glossy black rectangle in my lap. I had fallen asleep while I was reading.

Damn, I thought to myself.  I hate falling asleep reading. It’s what old people do. My grandmother did it, and so did my mother, although my mother would drink wine at dinner and then take Ambien before bed.  I often wonder how she managed to read at all.

My husband emerged from the bathroom and strode purposefully through the room.  That must have been what woke me up, I thought, him getting out of bed. He didn’t notice that I was sitting up with my iPad in my lap.  Then, just out of the corner of my eye, I saw a little boy, a vague image, streak past and run off through the house.

A ghost! I thought.  A little boy ghost! I was pleased. We live in an old house, and we always thought it would be the kind of place ghosts would like, if we believed in ghosts, which neither of us do.

My husband let out a snore.  He was already asleep.  I was disappointed, I wanted to tell him about the ghost.

When I woke up again, the bright sun was rising on a beautiful Southern California day. My iPad was on my nightstand, its cover neatly in place. I flipped it open and it took me to the beginning of the next chapter in my book, the spot where, the night before, I had decided to stop reading because I was tired.

So I hadn’t fallen asleep reading.

That was good, because it meant I’m not yet evolving into one of those people who doze off without warning. It also meant that I must have dreamed the whole thing, about waking up with my iPad in my lap. I tell my husband about it over coffee.

“Wasn’t that a weird dream?” I asked him.

He looked up from the newspaper. “You mean because of the ghost?”

“No,” I said. “Because in my dream, I woke up. It’s like I was dreaming about sleeping.”

“Hah!” he said, turning back to his paper.  “You can’t dream about sleeping.”

Which makes me wonder about that ghost.

(A-Z Blogging Challenge: S is for Sleep)