{"id":13015,"date":"2024-04-05T21:47:23","date_gmt":"2024-04-05T21:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=13015"},"modified":"2024-04-05T21:54:09","modified_gmt":"2024-04-05T21:54:09","slug":"some-freaks-sleep-when-they-go-to-bed-by-scott-pomfret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/some-freaks-sleep-when-they-go-to-bed-by-scott-pomfret\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Freaks Sleep When They Go To Bed by Scott Pomfret"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Some<\/h2>\n

Some freaks sleep when they go to bed. No tossing and turning. No dread. No rehashing bad choices and personal humiliations. No plotting endless revenge.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Such monsters can\u2019t be trusted. They inevitably have parents they admire, who are their best friends, who never spanked or raised their voices, and collected spare bikes from the town dump and fixed them up for needy kids, thereby teaching their unicorn children both the zen of bicycle maintenance and the grace of generosity and philanthropy.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Screw them. You\u2019re my people. You have ghosts that keep you gloriously interesting. You have bags under your eyes. You give head like you\u2019re saving a life through artificial resuscitation. Your smile is wretched, broken, and shy.<\/span><\/span> Your drooping lids snap wide at the night gossips: whispering wind, creaking floorboards, cranky radiator, a sharp bare branch etching a window pane.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We know better what bed\u2019s for: Passion. Regret. Dying. Wrestling. Clutching. Blood. Sweat. Fever. Tears. Bedsheets knotted like a rope for hanging. Pillowcases slicked damp with sweat when we sit bolt upright at precisely the same time and blurt, \u201cWhat the fuck was that?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The punch of a snapped bedspring pushes through your heart. The bedside radiator wakes with a vicious hiss. Pipes pound. Candle- or crayon-stench combines with damp cloth. Scatter-motes dust the moonlight. A distant audio stream quietly drones. The neighbor\u2019s television-flicker penetrates our blinds.We consider whether we deserve to be other than alone. No matter whether it\u2019s a queen or a California king, in our heads, they\u2019re all ultimately single beds.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I first knew you and I were partners in crime when I found you sleeping standing on a subway car. Jolt after jolt.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCome back to bed,\u201d I whispered.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t mean to sleep, perchance to dream, the least bad of all possible alternatives. I meant doorknocks and footfalls, whimpers and groans. Roach skitter. Mouse patter. Rocker creak. Braincase rattle. We\u2019d have been compelled to invent these sounds in our heads if they weren\u2019t real. We wouldn\u2019t ever be satisfied.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Haul up the ladders. Mount the bed high with storage beneath for shoes, for go bags, for bedding, for lice. <\/span>In light of the moon\u2019s careful inspection, you snatch a quarter from the air, so it doesn\u2019t bounce twice. You put it away for a rainy day.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We brave intruders we never invited. We watch shadows slough from the walls. We hunker down, we cup flame, we tell stories to faces we barely see. It\u2019s all very communal. If someone ever offered to grant us the peaceful sleepers\u2019 freakish sickly-sweet dreams, we\u2019d have called them pirates.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We speak housecreak. We breathe moonbeam. We hike the midnight bedsheet dunescape. We endure the cold fingers of perennially spinning ceiling fans.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We say, Remember the time\u2026?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We rarely allude to the future. We sleep only when we\u2019re dead. After feeding the young and living. We\u2019ll beatify every single one of those goddamn freaks.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Scott Pomfret is author of\u00a0Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir<\/i>;\u00a0Hot Sauce: A Novel<\/i>; the\u00a0Q Guide to Wine and Cocktails<\/i>, and over fifty short stories published in magazines including\u00a0Ecotone<\/i>,\u00a0Smokelong Quarterly, The Short Story (UK), Post Road, New Orleans Review, Fiction International<\/i>, and\u00a0Fourteen Hills<\/i>. An MFA candidate in creative writing at Emerson College, resident in Provincetown MA, Scott is at work on a comic queer Know-Nothing alternative history novel set in antebellum New Orleans. More at\u00a0www.scottpomfret.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some freaks sleep when they go to bed. No tossing and turning. No dread. No rehashing bad choices and personal humiliations. No plotting endless revenge. Such monsters can\u2019t be trusted. They inevitably have parents they admire, who are their best friends, who never spanked or raised their voices, and collected spare bikes from the town…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[425],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contemporary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13015"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13018,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13015\/revisions\/13018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}