'Now I lay me down to sleep...'
‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, and if I die before I ‘wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.’ Sometime in childhood, I decided that my favorite prayer was this one: an early example of my persistent affection for all things macabre. I wonder now if that began with an actuality I’ve been living with always - dreams where I’m in some uniquely blood-stopping scenario, unable to open my eyes and escape, knowing all the while that I could stop it if my mind wasn't petrified, stone-still. It’s an almost comically-cliche horror plot. When I finally pull myself out, all I can manage is to lie there, heart drumming, spine tingling, waiting for the thing in the shadows to materialize - how dare I want to close my eyes! I find that those nights are the ones I reprise that little prayer the most, like turning over a worry stone, pleading for God to make the last line come to pass. I know, it’s approaching too taboo to confess, but you have to believe me when I say that it’s less because I want to die, and more because I want to be saved. Surely if there’s something that can cause such fear, there must be something that can resolve it too. Resigned, I give myself over to the understanding that maybe that ‘something’ isn’t me.
