Andrew J. Lederer

I went to bed about 11:30.

Around 12, I woke up, tasting a mix of gastric juices and blood, my nose increasingly stuffed, unable to breathe without coughing.

The air smelled poisonous.

My roommate away, I'd closed the window he keeps open in the other room so it would feel like I was sleeping inside for a change. Had it been open for a reason?

Had I sleapt in a way that would court the breathlessness of apnea, which my father and I share?

Was it the massive quantities of coffee I'd drunk, along with that Cadbury's Dairy Milk Bar, pasta with crushed, dried peppers, crispy pretzels, and cream cheese-laced English muffin, not to mention the tuna with mayo and cold cuts and mustard?

I ate some more chocolate. Perhaps the creaminess would save me.

Couldn't lie down. Had to sit up.

Coughing.

Breathing still impeded.

Was I dying?

My torso, somehow, didn't feel emergency-room ready.

So, I opened the window, took Tums to thwart my gastric juices, tried hard to breathe, and sat 'til I was able to lie down.

Still tasting digestive fluids, with a soupcon of blood, I petitioned Morpheus for relief and eventually, he received me in his arms again.

A few hours later, I awoke, feeling great (though with irritation and a cough not far beneath the surface).

The air still smells wrong. What are they pumping into this place?

I turned up the air purifier.

Should I make some coffee? Breakfast?