Bedside Manner

“Awaken, dear sir.”

Not again! I turn over in my bed, eyes still closed, and hope the disturbing voice disappears. But I know it won’t. I can’t seem to shake the strange thoughts and voices that pop into my head at 4 or 5 in the morning when I have to pee but I don’t want to get up.

“Whilst you sleep in this paltry room, my good man, ’tis…”

Oh, this one is a doozy. I got a woman with a British accent bugging me. Last night, it was a pro wrestler with a gravelly voice and an eviction notice.

I turn to the other side and my pillow falls off the bed. I reach to the floor and probe with my hand, but can’t seem to find it. Drat! I grudgingly open my eyelids. And I freeze.

A woman is standing next to my bed. She is in an elegant blue nightgown. Brownish-blonde tresses are falling over her outstretched arm, which is holding my pillow. But I won’t look at her face. I am afraid of what I will see in this nightmare.

I shut my eyes and rub my lids with my fists. When I slowly open them, the woman is still there. But the pillow is closer, inches from my face.

I summon the courage to turn my gaze upward. I see a narrow, pale-white chin. Lucious pink lips in the hint of a smile. Finally, alluring eyes with long dark lashes. She nods toward the pillow.

I know this image is not real, but I smile and move my hands toward the pillow. But she whisks it away. She leans down closer to my face.

“Tis right that I withhold your pillow, Mister Longworth, because on this morn you cannot sleep in,” the woman says in a flat, serious tone. “You must rush in to work, because at this very moment, a fly-rink colleague at Dorn Manufacturing is plotting with company Vice President Franks to terminate your employment and your division. Don’t lay there like a wooden spoon!”

I close my eyes, but I still hear her telling me to get up. “If you do not reach the president and put a stop to this codswallop, you will be condemned to this pigsty perhaps until death. Where is the fireplace in this bedroom? And your bed—is that a common wood frame? Where is the brass, good sir? You live like a Middle Age primitive, not a self-respecting Englishman in the enlightened nineteenth century.”

I try to think of other things. I try to sleep. I toss around and the sheets come loose. It seems like an hour has passed. Maybe two. She is still there and still talking.

Enough! I throw off the bedcover and sheet, bounce out of bed on the other side, and run to the bathroom. I hear her voice until I shut the door. At least I finish my business in peace. I cautiously open the door. The voice is gone—and so is she.

But the messy bed I left is now a picture of order, every cover and sheet smoothed and in place and the pillow fluffed—with two wrapped mints on the pillowcase.

I shake my head and sit on the edge of the bed. Before I know it, I am laying atop the covers. My eyes closed.

“Excuse me.”

The next thing I know those two words are tumbling from my mouth. I am standing at the foot of a grandiose brass bed in a sprawling room with a fireplace, a chandelier, ornate furniture, and flowing drapes.

Someone in the bed stirs and slowly peels back an ornate bedcover. I see the frightened but alluring eyes. Quivering pink lips. And that narrow chin. This is the same woman who visited me.

She asks, “What are you doing in my bedroom?”

I open my mouth, but only frightened silence comes out. I shut my eyes, cup my face with both hands, and shudder. I open my eyes and I am back on my own bed.

I close my eyes and open them again. I am standing next to a bed in the corner of a gymnasium.

“Ahem,” I say because I don’t know what to say.

Someone in the bed stirs and tosses aside an old green cover. It is the wrestler who tried to evict me just the other night.

“How’d you get in here?” the wrestler says in a gravelly voice. “And do you have that deed?”

Panic sets in and I close my eyes.

A phone rings.

I open my eyes and I am laying atop my own bed.

The phone rings again.

I leap out of bed, run to the phone, lift the device off the charger, activate the app, and shout, “Hello?”

“Longworth, is that you?”

“Yessir, Mr. Franks. What can I do for you?”

“Nothing. Due to downsizing, I regret to inform you that your division has been eliminated along with your job. Effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”

The call ends. I shuffle back to the bedroom. I brush the mints off the pillow and lay on the bed. I wipe away a tear.

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