The sleeper

He can’t sleep without the video, beamed onto the wall from a projector on the ceiling. He watches it propped up against the bedhead, a pillow at his back, the blanket pulled up to his stomach. A hand works across the page, making the level of light in the room flicker and change. The sound of pencil on paper scratches out of the speakers. The page’s white is slowly filled.

As the video plays – it isn’t in black and white but the colours are dull, the artist’s skin almost white and the wooden desk almost black – he sinks down into the bed.

The artist’s worn hand – it can only be a man’s – works. There is a moment when the sketch, growing darker, the lines thicker and heavier, looks irreperably lost. The scratching of pencil on paper continues.

There is a blank. He wills the artist to fill it. He has watched this, these hands, this page, countless times – every night. The scratching, the image taking shape, rising off the page, does something to him. It feels to him like the front of his brain is being massaged, willing him to sleep, like a lullaby. But the blank white spot remains unfilled. Despite watching this sequence, knowing it, knowing the veins and contours of the hands, he urges it. He still feels teased by the artist’s neglecting it.

The artist switches pencils, continues.

A thought lingers even now, although he disproved it. He believed it was the sound that made him sleep, so once he left the cap on the projector and listened only to the noises of pencil on paper. He couldn’t sleep. Another time, he tried only the video.

Soon, the white is filled. He slumps in his bed, the scratching tickling his brain. He is asleep before the artist finishes and the video stops.

LI

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