Bedtime Stories...

I used to enjoy my walks home after work. The beauty of this city at night, the quiet and empty sidewalks, the nightsky's stars so out shined by the millions of lit windows dotting the sleeping skyscrapers like a metropolis star map, leading me home, all helped my full head clear. But lately, I crave chaos and the 8 hours of mind numbing stupidity I endure everyday at work. Lost for now a cleared mind, unwanted and impossible to maintain, too easily filled with the regrets and sorrows of recent events. I need noise. I take the largest sections with the biggest tables inhabited by the most ridiculous people all to keep my mind off one...one particular person, and for that 8 hours everyday, she is gone...until the long walk home.

Tonight was no different. I welcomed the woman and her allergies to gluten and dairy, to soy and nuts. Her life threatening dietary issues proved invaluable for keeping my mind occupied for a good 30 minutes. Nobody dies today, not on my watch. I was happy to receive the new winter menu, hot off the presses with its complex flavors and numerous never before heard of ingredients and looked forward to the food test. How about throwing in a wine quiz? Just give me some time and I bet I could name that Cabernet in three sips. Give me more, more! Fill my head with inane gossip of who's fucking who - give me more! Give me more! But time passes so quickly when you're having "fun" and before I knew it, the old neon clock above the bar struck twelve and the tables were transferred and I had on my coat and was out the door and I forgot everything about the night. I forgot how the new chicken's potato terrine is covered in duck fat and what was the difference between old and new world wines and who's fucking who now? All gone, and with each step down West Broadway, an old memory of Kristyna strolled on in, and by the time I got home, my mind was full and ready to explode.

No sleep tonight, I thought. Another 10 hours of eyes open, staring at my smoke stained walls. No sleep tonight. I stood on my street in front of my building for a moment, slowly scanning the windows of apartments on my block for any sign of life and so jealous when none were found. Each window, dark, lightless and I imagined within all the happily sleeping bodies. Window after window, dark tonight...all but one. One in my building on my floor in my apartment. The window of my roommate and very best friend, Heather Mary.

I walked inside and put down my keys. Heather Mary's door, I noticed, was slightly open. Quietly, I knocked. "Come in," she said. "I can't sleep," she said. "Tell me a story," she said.

I walked in and sat down beside her bed. "I don't know any stories, at least none that are appropriate for bedtime." She smiled and said, "You know I like inappropriate stories." "Alright," I said, "have you heard the one about the crazy girl with a dead dog who tried to kill the dumbass and his friends?" Heather Mary nodded, "Yeah, that sounds familiar. Is that the one about the nice guy who always picks the wrong girl and when she goes nuts, all he wants to do is help her and make it all better?" Lowering my head in embarrassment, I said, "You've heard that one, huh?" Heather Mary replied, " Yeah, like a million times. Why do you think he does that? Why do you think he feels such responsibility for people. Why does he take on everybody's problems?" I looked at Heather Mary, "He's the protector." And she shook her head, "Who's gonna protect him cause one day, that shit's gonna get him killed." "Heather Mary," I said, "fear can't get in the way of doing what is right. Sometimes, we have to be brave."

I remembered when I was young, "I hated going to sleep at night, my room was the darkest room in the house. Just one window. My dad wouldn't let me sleep with the light on cause I was a boy and only girls slept with the lights on or with a night-light or with stuffed animals, so I would lay in bed, covers up to my chin and pray to God to keep me safe. When I was 8, my mom tried to make it better by telling me a bedtime story about a little boy who was afraid of everything, just like me. Each night, she would sit by my bed and tell me about his adventures and how he became a hero and the bravest boy around." Heather Mary pulled the covers up to her chin, "Was the little boy's name Paul-David?" "No," I said, "It was Sebastian. Sebastian Goodnight." And with a squeal, Heather Mary curled up in her very large bed and said, "Tell me that story. Tell me the story about Sebastian Goodnight."

"Alright. Let me see. How does it go again? It's been a long time. Oh yes, I remember now."

"Once upon a time..."