Without opening my eyes I knew what time it was. I rolled to my side and clicked off the concentrator and air pump. The sighing sound of the pump stopped. The sudden decrease in pressure sucked the mask to my face briefly before I thumbed the catch under my ear and released the nose piece. Draping the mask and hoses across the machine I glanced at the clock face. 3:15. I put my head back down, knowing more sleep was improbable. Almost immediately the thoughts started coming, nothing of consequence: “What was I going to put in Lyd’s lunch? Meatloaf. No, the left over chicken. No that’s not right. What did I tell her?” And so it went, my mind rambling from one thing to another, keeping itself busy, holding sleep off. I turned over and stuffed the pillow into a pile underneath my head. The sleeplessness was one of the reasons I’d taken retirement a bit early. Just before Christmas I’d seen my doctor about leg swelling. She hinted at heart problems and sleep apnea and in turn sent me to a test center. There I endured a strange night in a strange bed, my face lined with markers and dotted with patches holding wires connected to monitors. The room was wired for sound and had a camera to monitor my movements while he slept. I was awakened often by a voice asking me to turn one way or another. It was surreal and disturbing. Sometime during the night I had been fitted with a mask and put on a machine which forced air into my lungs in a steady rhythm. I woke at 4:00, my usual time, and told the room that I needed someone to unhook me. A voice from the wall told me someone would be there presently. Unhooked, I went into the washroom to shower and dress and was startled by my face in the mirror, covered in black and red lines and numbers. Later they bought me a muffin and coffee. I sat and read for two hours until the day nurse arrived to share the results. I was tired and probably unfocused on a daily basis, she said, because I stopped breathing as many as 100 times an hour during the night. The level of oxygen in my blood routinely dropped below 90%. I would need to use a breathing machine, a BIPAP she called it, at night from now on. She tried to put a positive spin on her news, sharing how much better her own husband felt using the breather at night. It didn’t help. I walked out of the office, my emotions as dark as the black bag of the machine that I carried.

That was when my nightly struggle for sleep began. After sipping an evening glass of wine while reading in bed, my favorite way to end the day, I would position the mask and try to find a sleeping position for my head that kept the mask secure. A slight move and the mask would make burbling noises as the on and off again air pressure broke the seal of the soft plastic, or it would just blow air into my eyes. The hose followed my head and entwined around my arms and neck. It was like sleeping with an octopus. Sleep did not come easy or last long, though gradually the machine and I reached an uneasy détente. Then the second machine arrived. Unlike the BIPAP, which was the size of a laptop keyboard, the oxygen concentrator was the size of carry-on luggage, weighed 40 pounds, beeped loudly when it was turned on, made a wheezing sound like a rusty pump when it operated and had extra hoses to add to my nightly wrestling match. With it came an oxygen tank, which lurked in a corner of the bedroom, on its own hand truck to be used during power outages. I realized that I was stuck with these machines forever. Going to bed began to feel like going to the hospital every night. That’s when the sleeplessness really began. 3 AM became the new 5AM. Most nights, I thought of them as mornings now, I gave in and got up, made a French press of coffee and read until Lydia got up at 5 AM to get ready for work. While she showered I put on the kettle to make a cup of tea to take in to her, fixed her lunch bag and started breakfast. Occasionally though I could calm my thoughts a bit and get another hour or two of sleep, “The train,” I thought. “Listen for the train.” Intentionally I imagined blackness and waited. Sometimes I heard it. It would be far off, but still I could hear the train’s horn as it approached the first crossings into town. One long, low sound, a pause and then another. Before the third horn my mind would still, I’d nod off and wouldn’t hear anything until I woke when Lydia got out of bed at five.