💤 Polly Can’t Sleep 🙏

Polly could not sleep. She was exhausted, her eyelids were heavy, her little body was full of yawns. Sleep just would not come. Polly heard her bedroom door creak open. It was still dark, no moon, night surrounding.  The night light beside the bed, a soft dim bulb behind a plastic cloud, it held Polly in its glow. She sat up and peered at the open door. A man in a suit stood there. 

‘I’ll only be here for a moment,’ he told the girl, and he sidled over to her tiny desk and sat in her tiny chair. Polly was afraid it might break under the man’s weight. 

‘Who are you?’ she asked the man in the suit.

‘I’m a flawless man,’ he answered. ‘I’m infallible. I have certain powers.’

‘What kind of powers?’ Polly pulled her blanket up around her chest, she was suddenly cold. 

The man smiled in the night light’s luster. ‘I’m here to help you sleep,’ he said and bowed his head, closing his eyes. He held his hands together and there he remained motionless. Softly he prayed.

Polly felt a chill breeze and noticed her window curtain moving. A woman in a suit was climbing in through the window. She tumbled into the bedroom, landing on the floor with a thud. The woman waved to Polly.

‘Who are you?’ Polly asked the woman.

‘Me? I’m a smart lady,’ she replied, lifting herself from the floor and dusting herself off. ‘I know a thing or two about a thing or two.’

Polly glanced at the man in the suit who was still sitting in prayer. ‘What do you know about?’ she asked the woman in the suit.

‘Well, shucks, I think I know just the way to help you get some shut-eye,’ said the smart lady, and she turned back to the window, threw open the curtains, looked up into the night sky, and held her hands in prayer. The woman whispered to herself, to the sky, to a red star.

The bedroom door creaked again. A man in a suit entered and smiled.

‘Who are you?’ Polly asked.

The man approached the bed and knelt down. He took Polly’s hand. ‘I’m your best friend,’ he whispered. ‘The best friend you’ll ever have, darling.’ His hands were freezing. They always had been.

‘I already have a best friend,’ Polly told the kneeling man in the suit. ‘Her name is—’

‘No,’ the man interrupted, his icy hand tightening on Polly’s. ‘Your best friend is me. I’m your best friend. I’m here to help you fall asleep. After all, what are best friends for?’ He flashed a smile. His teeth were long and shining silver and sharpened to incredible points. Polly tried to pull her hand free from the kneeling man but his grip only grew tighter. 

The man held his head low, his hair almost touching the mattress. He began muttering a prayer. Not in English. Polly did not know the language, it did not sound like any she had ever heard spoken at school.

‘It is an ancient language,’ said the man, his razor shark teeth glinting in the low light. He continued in his archaic tongue. Polly wished she could release herself from the man’s hold. His fingers were like snakes around her hand. Polly looked around the room. The first man in the suit still prayed quietly in the chair. The woman in the suit still whispered prayers to the red star in the night sky. Neither of them had acknowledged each other nor the man in the suit kneeling at the bed, and he had not acknowledged either of them. 

As the night wore on, another man in a suit would find his way into Polly’s bedroom, then another woman in a suit would scramble up the side of the house and sneak in through the open window, then another man, then another woman, then another man, then another woman. And Polly would ask who each one was, and they would answer Polly and tell her they could help her fall asleep. The room was soon filled with various men and women in suits, in various forms of prayer, all praying for Polly to find sleep. The room vibrated with the rumbling of prayer. Polly’s head began to ache from the devotional cacophony. And then a new sound. A thump. A thump. Slowly. One after the other. Thump… thump… The men and women in their suits hushed. Everyone listened to the slow thumping. Closer and louder with every heavy, arduous step. Whoever it was was coming up the staircase. They were trudging down the hallway. They were outside Polly’s room. The bedroom door opened. A short man in a straw hat and overalls thumped his way inside. He wore large black boots, possibly three sizes too big for his feet. He dragged a pitchfork in his wake. The men and women in suits backed away from him as he made his way toward Polly’s bed. In the glow of the night light, his face was white as the moon, painfully thin, a hungry face, unquestionably starving. His eyes were lost inside his skull, he looked as if he had just come from his own midnight funeral. The kneeling man clutching Polly’s hand leapt up and backed away from the approaching farmer. He stopped at the edge of the bed, taking the place of the kneeling man in the suit. He stared at Polly with those lost eyes in his head. 

‘Who are you?’ she asked him.

‘Go to sleep,’ he said. His voice sounded like it hurt him to speak, like there were shards of glass in his throat. 

‘Who are you?’ Polly repeated. 

His face changed. He frowned. He seemed angry. ‘Go to sleep,’ he hissed.

‘I can’t,’ Polly whined. ‘I keep having bad dreams, they keep me up all night.’

The farmer shook his head. ‘Now isn’t the time to talk about dreams.’

‘But that’s why I can’t sleep. I need the bad dreams to stop.’

‘It’s not the dreams,’ the farmer said, and he looked angrier than before. He was crawling onto the bed.

Polly tried to back up but the bed’s headboard was against the wall. There was nowhere for her to go. 

‘The dreams aren’t the problem,’ the farmer repeated, his voice like a distant roll of thunder. He raised his pitchfork, pointing it at Polly, at her chest, then at her face. ‘We need to change how you think about sleep, Polly. It’s not the fault of the dreams.’ He held the points of the pitchfork in her face. Polly had her eyes closed. She turned her face away.

‘Go to sleep,’ the farmer threatened the girl. ‘Go to sleep, Polly. Enjoy your dreams and enjoy your sleep. Dreams are wonderful. Embrace dreams.’

‘But they’re bad dreams,’ Polly whimpered. 

‘There are no bad dreams,’ the farmer hissed, ‘only bad people. Now settle under your blanket. And go to sleep.’ With the tips of the pitchfork, he brushed the hair away from her face. Polly shivered at the cold metal touching her skin. She opened her eyes again to look upon the farmer.

‘All of you,’ said the farmer to the men and women in suits. ‘Get goin, head on out. Polly here is gonna get some sleep.’

The crowd of suits bustled their way out of the girl’s bedroom, cramming and shoving their way through the doorway, knocking trinkets over as they went. 

The room was quiet again. The farmer hopped off Polly’s bed. ‘Goodnight,’ he said. He exited the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. 

Polly turned onto her side and clutched her pillow. She tried to sleep and when she finally did, she dreamed she was a pitchfork, held and loved.