Strange dreams, images I can’t remember, sensations and abstractions and the hint of something witnessed and forgotten, awakening amnesia, a passing recognition but failed memory. A cold sweat and a shiver, I reached for the bedroom window, to press it closed in one quick motion only to discover that the glass was already shut, the cold pressing through the same as the sound of the traffic.

The nightmares – if that’s what they were – crawl across my mind and body alike, no line, no separation nor difference. Stress does that, worry and fear and grief do that. They take your thoughts, emotions, and they turn them physical, manifesting in slick, a tremble, a ragged breath, indwelling in the empty space, space that should be filled – is in fact filled, but hidden in a shadow too deep. Perhaps for the best.

I left the lights off, slipping out my bedroom door for my window seat at the front of the house, bringing a fleece blanket with me; the black and gray one, not the blue one. Not that one.

Curled up against the glass, looking out, hardly a hint of my own reflection looking back. The street lamps cast orange pools of light in a regular rhythm across the hoods of cars, asphalt, the light giving everything a similar color, a sepia, the stuff of faded photographs.

Cars driving along the main road behind the apartment lit scurrying blue and white light creatures along the grass, shimmering, ducking, weaving through the branches of the trees that surround the complex. Through the crack in the window I can hear motors racing, revving and ceasing, starting and going again. More headlights, this time on the side of the building in front of me as a car comes round the development circle, the roundabout street. Parallel parks up the road.

I hear the voices before I see them, two young men in backpacks, one with a bag of what’s likely takeout in his hand, in an otherwise quiet complex. Graduation night but not a sound. The focus for now is probably the downtown, crowding bars and restaurants with siblings and friends. Family.

The two turn and walk inside their apartment, slam the door closed behind them.

Ten minutes later, girls, loud, along the side of my building. I barely see them, they don’t notice me. I can hear their shrill half-laughing conversation, loose, a giggle, then a muffled sound as they walk into the unit next door and slam the door closed behind them.

The trees sway in the wind. My eyes are getting heavy again.

Thumps up and down the stairs next door. This time audible shouts of goodbye. I press my forehead to the glass and a threesome leave. The porch light blinks off. The hint of my reflection, gone. I watch the imprint fade when I pull back from the window.

Perhaps this time I’ll sleep soundly.