Saturday's Storyteller: "Only the insomniacs hear the whispers in the walls."

by Belinda Roddie

One am

Only the insomniacs hear the whispers in the walls. Can you hear them, too? It starts with a lot of scratching. Like a cat trying to paw its way into your room, noiselessly wailing at the closed door. Noiselessly wailing. You can't hear the sound, but you can. You can. You can.

I have listened to these whispers for twenty years. For a while, I didn't think it was in my tongue. Slowly, though, I have grown to understand the words. I know one phrase they always utter, incompletely, without an ending. "Did you know? Did you know? Did you know that

Two am

only the insomniacs hear the whispers in the walls? We have messages for them. All of them. The first is this: Don't go to sleep. Sleep brings about dreams. Dreams are only fragments of a reality you wish you had. There are ghosts in dreams. The dead return in dreams. You fall in love with the wrong people in dreams. Kiss them in dreams. Fornicate with them in dreams. Have their babies. And all their babies whisper. They do not cry. They whisper, and

Three am

only the insomniacs hear the whispers in the wall. The unborn children in those dreams do not speak a human language. They were never able to learn it. Outside, an old man digs graves for them. He mops his brow with an old, old handkerchief. The cloth belonged to the gown of his dead wife. His dead wife wanted children. Seven of them. Six died before they were even born.

I am clawing. Scratching. I wail noiselessly. Can they hear me? Still they speak to me. Their demon laughter sounds like bells chiming from a church. A cathedral where the gargoyles were smashed with hammers. There, there is whispering in the walls.

Four am

Only the insomniacs

It's cold.

Only the insomniacs hear the chanting. The music. The quiet resemblance of memory.

It's cold.

Only the insomniacs

Five am

Sunrise burns us.

This week's prompt was provided by Daniel Bulone.