It was a dark fever of a night, the kind with tremendous dreams that wake only to shivering cold sweats and the 5 AM call to prayer.  Consciousness unwillingly suspends itself for hours on end beneath one hundred degrees of self-revulsion, of seething blood and flesh and gall, of wickedness. I am buried. There is no memory. There is no time. Only a distant crescendo of some monotonous dirge. It wails as I teeter-totter on the cusp of reality. And some weight, ominous and unseen, is pressing down. I feel it on my chest. In my chest. I push back, but have no arms. And my running legs, they are made of sand and syrup and all things gelatinous and slow. I can’t recall how this all began, but the unwelcome urgency of the moment seems familiar. Subtle rotten nostalgia.

I am resurfacing now. And there is shouting in the room. Monochromatic bursts that steadily prove themselves as independent of the dirge. The recurring dream, the one I thought I had expelled in the third grade, is finally behind me. So recent and vivid, but fading. And I choose not to explore the final moments of it’s grip. It is better not to dwell here. To understand or decode their meaning. To delve is to compromise escape, so only broad themes and heavy breaths remain as I resume consciousness.

I feel my fingers. I feel toes. I am distracted by the shouting. I am tangled helplessly in my mosquito bed net. Yes, there is shouting and that shouting is loud. And I hate shouting. Sean is sleeping and snoring and shouting with spite. He lies immobile. Unwakeable. The tenacious slumber only he can muster. It is a blessing and a curse. I struggle for him to stop, but soon it becomes clear that I am the one who shouts, not he. I blabber and blunder. I am spinning. He does not speak. He lies immobile. Unwakeable. None of this is making any sense. I am not alone. My voice falls, robbing a dissonant harmonic from the mosque next door. Its dutiful melody encroaches on our bedroom. Covering me in my mosquito net tangle. Covering his still figure in the next bunk.

I calm and listen, in wonder, at the humble masses who share this message beyond our walls. Do they understand the call? I certainly do not. The vocalist has decided that mid-throat is an ideal position to hold his microphone. For the sake of mass communication this seems unreasonable. Syllables articulate themselves prematurely and are perfectly indistinguishable to the naked ear. They gargle and yelp in the way that is blandly monotone…I tremble between fever and chill and close eyes, giving myself back to the night.