Death By Night and Sandman

By : Osiris

 

"Sleep,

Those little slices of Death

How I loathe them."

          -Edgar Allen Poe

 

What do you think when you sleep? Just before, during and right after? What exactly goes through your mind just before you close your eyes and surrender yourself to the Sandman’s spell? All you do is when you wake up, you shake off the sand and go on with your life.

 

But my father knows just what you think of.

 

You think of your darkest secrets. The ones you cannot even dare to put in your pathetic little diaries. The secret, forbidden desires, all masquerading as unrequited love when all it is would be your unrestrained libido. Those little dark thoughts, images you wish to see in real life and don’t. Desires to kill someone. Desires to fuck someone. Desires to fuck then kill that someone. 

 

My father knows. And therefore I know.

 

How, you fearfully ask? Who are we to go into your room, climb into your bed, and submerge ourselves into the darkness that is simply what you’ve been trying to hide?

 

My father is the Sandman, the one who puts you to sleep.

 

And I? I am Death By Night, the one who puts you to Eternal sleep.

 

So sleep begot death and we work together hand in hand.

 

That is why we know.

 

Father’s habits are easy, lull you to sleep with slow instances, memories and whatnot. And on that second that before you slip into the black abyss lined with mirrors, He opens your soul, like when he opens clams to eat, and he feasts on the naked psyche you present to him.

 

And he laughs. A hallow laugh that transforms itself into your dreams, following your subconscious little idiosyncrasies and reports back to us your deepest darkest desires, your terrible fears and your sensual libido-driven dreams. After which he laughs again.

 

And when he laughs, I laugh along. A laugh lined with bitter tears. I am not needed yet.

 

But when he laughs and instead of being hallow and wicked, it stills everything, as if halting them in their moment of breathing, I come. For he has chosen my mission.

 

He would stand over the soul and gaze deeper. I would wait, patiently impatient outside the window. He would turn and with cruelly glittering eyes he would motion me to come. And I would smile.

 

And I laugh. A laugh lined with painful tears.

 

A soft tap on the shoulder and a dazed soul reaches for my hand. I’ll smile and say to the soul, “Good evenin’ suga’” and prattle on about one or the other subjects that the poor thing likes. But all the while I’ve taken the soul’s hand and have reached our destination. I’ve brought the soul to a bed, smiling and saying, “Well, suga’ all I can tell you right now is you’re dreaming. Go to sleep again there, and you’ll wake up nice and fresh.” I’d smile again, soft, innocent and reassuring.

 

Most of them are too dazed to do anything other than nod weakly and climb into the bed. But once or twice in a millennium, I get stopped and will get told, “But, if I’m asleep…how can going to sleep wake me up? And who the hell are you?”

 

I’ll just smile and continue on prattling, leading the topic somewhere else. If the soul can actually outtalk me, which is rare, they go back, with a wonderful dream courtesy of my not-so-approving father. But if they can’t…eternal sleep beckons.

 

It is only then do I cry.

 

I’m nothing like my relatives, Death by Accident, Death by Suicide and all the rest I’ve forgotten who they are and where they are. They are the ones who are a little too random in picking out missions; they even call the souls victims, not missions. But I’m too much a daddy’s girl.

 

It still hurts.

 

Death By Night Hurts.

 

The Sandman understands. This wasn’t our choice. We don’t have any choice.

 

And so people still meet their Death By Night, or just the Sandman. But nevertheless, our arrival always brings a loss. A loss of your innocence by night? Or a loss of your life?

 

Which is important to you?

 

As you ponder this, my father and I, we revel in the moonlight’s silver rays and melt into the steely shadows of the night. We’re just in those quiet places where no man has ever dared to enter and while man has fear of the unknown, he will always fear the night, and of nightmares, and of death by night.

 

But fear of the unknown has always been an endearing human trait.

 

And so as long as humans are humans, and the night still falls, we will come.

 

My father and me.

 

Death By Night and Sandman.