The Twilight Zone
Written By Pete Nelson
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While after five weeks Pete and Tracey show no signs of disharmony (maybe because as prep-school teachers and dorm parents they're accustomed to disruption and chaos), humans suffering from sleep deprivation don't do much better than rats. When the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese torpedo during WWII, nearly 900 men spent up to five sleepless days in the water. Because their life jackets didn't support their heads, they nodded face-first into the water when they hit REM. Within 48 hours, survivors were hallucinating, dreaming while wide awake, fighting viciously for a place in the life rafts, and attacking each other with knives.
Most new parents stop short of actual knife attacks, but the marital strain is nevertheless significant.
At 2:45 a.m., I hear Reiley gurgling as he audibly fills his diaper. His spluttering is followed by a clucking sound, sort of like a contented parrot in a darkened pet shop. I rise to change his diaper, then hand him to Tracey, who nurses him for 15 minutes.
Afterward I place Reiley in his bassinet, and for a while he coos, sated and copacetic. When he begins keening again, I pick him up before he wakes my hosts and cradle him in my arms, rocking him gently from side to side, recapitulating the archetypal motions we learned when we still slept in trees, before the bough broke. Reiley glances at me suspiciously for a while, unsure that I can be trusted. Finally his eyes close for good and I lay him down, while the dog snores and moonlight shines through the window and crickets chirp outside. Now it's 4:02. I yawn. I'm so tired.
The next morning, Tracey informs me that during the entire time I was trying to get Reiley to go back down, she was wide awake, listening, her maternal instincts too strong to suppress.
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