"The Further Adventures of Emily's Husband"

For the third time this week, I wake up screaming. I gasp, trying to catch my breath and calm down. Rifling desperately through the shreds of my fading unconscious, I try to remember what it was that woke me and get nothing.
I look over at my wife, deep asleep. I don't know how she manages it through my episodes. The blanket has fallen off her, and while I reach to pull it back up, I see that she's shivering. As I watch, her whole body begins to shake, twitching spasmodically, and her face wrenches up into some kind of agonized rictus.
"Emily!" I shout, grabbing her shoulders. There is a staccato retching noise coming up through her nose, with brief bursts of air and saliva pushing through her tensed lips.
"Emily!" I shout again, shaking her, and her eyes pop open.
"Bwaahahahahaha!" she blurts, taking a deep gasp of air and then lets loose with the biggest belly laugh I've ever heard her make.
I'm still looking at her, confused and a little concerned, when she calms enough to look up at me with tear-bleary eyes and sputters "...you...your face...heh...when you wake up...sc...sreaming..."
As she peals out another storm of laughter, trying at intervals to calm down, I notice she's holding one of the large salmon-colored knitting needles her aunt gave her as a wedding present.
"What," I start, overloud, trying to get heard over her gasps. "Why do you have that?" I ask, indicating the needle.
She stops suddenly, confused, quiet as she looks at the needle in her hand, and then starts laughing again.
I groan and flop back onto the bed, covering my face with my hands.
"It's," she says finally, "it's what I used, you know..."
She takes a deep breath and I uncover my eyes and look over at her.
"For what?" I ask.
"To, you know," she says, taking another breath. "To wake you up."
I sit up. "How, exactly?" I ask. "How did you use it?"
She hesitates, and then reaches the needle toward my head, suddenly freezing, staring at my face.
I feel a warm itch beneath my nose and on my upper lip and unconsciously probe the area with my tongue, tasting blood. She's still staring.
"What..." I start, and rub my hand across my face, under my nose. It comes back smeared red.
"What did you do?" I ask. I bring my hand up to pinch my nose and hear a tiny ripping noise somewhere inside my head. Blood starts to flow, pushing through my nostrils, spilling down my chest and onto the bed. I scratch at the bed sheet frantically, trying to pull it up to use to staunch the flow, but it won't budge, fitted tightly to the mattress.
"Get me a towel!" I try to sputter through the warm fluid running across my lips, but it comes out sounding like "Gahmyatahl!"
Emily stares.
At some point I pull off my pillow case and wad it up under my nose. Breathing through my mouth, I look back at my wife. She looks back at me in the frozen look of shock she's held for the last minute, and then starts laughing again.
I stand up. She points at me and falls back on the bed, still laughing.
"Fibe," I say. "I'b goaba sweep ob de coush, den."

Comments

[Enna Isilee]

I'm beginning to think you have something against marraige.

[Katee]

If you ever hear me randomly saying, "Bwaahahahahaha!" you'll know where I got it from.

[hwalk]

You really should try workshopping your blog in a middle-level college creative writing class.

[Enna Isilee]

I randomly blurt "Bwaahahahahaha!" all the time. Usually just to see my friends panic and yell "What did you do?!"

[Sylvia]

"...but it comes out sounding like "Gahmyatahl!"..." That reminds me very much of my own voice at Blood-Nose-Hours of the day :)