Dead-Night Visitors

An Invisible Hero story

Salutations, fiction-lovers.

Today, I’m very excited to bring you Zoe Carada.

Zoe writes Mentatrix, where she shares character-driven fiction and creative nonfiction about inner journeys, identity, and society, prompting readers to reflect on their own choices, habits, and contexts. It’s great!

Here, Zoe shares a short piece of fiction from her Invisible Hero series, which features characters who are driven by hidden voices, life scripts, or beliefs; who have long repressed and forgotten something; or who see something that others don’t… Enjoy!

— M. E. Rothwell

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The day is thankfully coming to an end. Not that it went badly, but it went and went with the questioning, the challenging, the demanding, the rephrasing, the hedging, the retorting — all round, all of the dozen people present. Your ear and blood pressure adjusted to the range of voices and energies, from blunt aggression to secretive comments whispered over your elbow. The meeting room was a bit cramped and overheated, which made the verbal flood yet denser and heavier.

You took a walk afterwards, avid for the fresh air and the sharp wind blowing in your face. You only had an hour or so, before changing and meeting everyone for dinner again. Sitting in the dark oak panelled tavern, you would catch jokes you sometimes didn’t really get, watch small groups created ad-hoc at one or the other end of the table, hear laughs, clinking of cutlery, small talk, smart things to say, funny replies to gift for merriness, toasting, offering another glass of wine, and no-thanking.

Now, finally, alone: no voices, no other human presence to acknowledge and consider.

You slip under the duvet, turn on the bedside lamp and pick up the book to shut down for the day. The story ties you off like a boat slipping its moorings.

You switch off the light, turn on the same side as always, pat the pillow to fit it in the hollow between your head and your shoulder.

Clinking of cutlery.

Jokes you didn’t really get.

Laughs.

Secretive comments.

Dark oak panelled tavern glass of wine no-thanks overheated room the meeting table.

Hey, time to sleep now. You change the side. Maybe the buzz will go quiet like sand falling to a mound on the bottom of a jar. The jar being you.

Replaying the film of the day resumes:

the walk down the historical street the nice sweater you didn’t buy after all the team who talked too much who raised the voice who was doodling in the middle of it

The shoulder hurts as if the bed was too hard. You turn on your back. That feels like opening up and letting it all in.

Did you really have to intervene at that point, it’s not your business after all let them make their mistakes it’s not like you’re enlightening them

The senior guy (the big boss has just announced his retirement) is already preparing to take over boss’s role all engaged and acting as discussion leader

You should have made that point clearer, now the doodling guy will think you meant him when you said we’re the worst sales people if we don’t believe in the product

You turn back on the familiar side. Maybe giving it another try will do the trick this time.

It feels tight with the buzzes and shreds of impressions and assessments of what went on and how it went, the skin is almost tingling with tiny intangible pins. You kick the duvet off.

You sit up again, turn on the light, do some more reading. The story ties you off but only half-way, the ropes and the moorings are still there, just longer. The pins and needles are not exactly gone. Your mind is a blank screen with thousands of pixels wiggling like entropic particles.

Your eyes are tired and you’re fed up with the story, tickled and nudged as you are continually by the little buzzes. You turn off the light again, pretending it’s the first time and you’re now going to sleep.

The day was just a day with its dialogues and power shows and turn-taking games but rising and looking beyond you see the boss’s retirement – who will take his place (will it be good or bad if the senior guy takes over?) will they keep the game as laid back or will they question what you do will they prod you this way or that way what if they wonder about the rationale of having you doing this job instead of the other job or of having you in any job at all how much money do you still have aside and how long will it last you if the going gets tough

You become aware of another tightening of the skin and of a spike in the pressure of your blood running down its vessels. You don’t usually do this but maybe playing soothing meditation music may help this time, so you may sink in peacefulness.

You sit up listening and close your eyes to practise what you know, that meditation habit of letting yourself fall fall fall below the surface of the human world. Into the unknown into the depths where thoughts don’t matter where thoughts don’t exist.

Silence.

Dark.

Falling.

You can feel the muscles around your neck releasing the tension. Then the arms. The skin feels as if its breathing out, pins and needles gone.

Liberated.

Relieved.

Even if the boss is gone, someone good will take his place. All is good, and will be.

But if a boss retiring can change your life, what kind of life is it, a little boat like a nutshell on a choppy sea all your projects the illusion of all is good

What time could it be should you take a pill

But now it’s late anyway by the time it does its work you should be sleeping anyway. Tomorrow another full day – no not tomorrow it’s today just a few hours off you’ll need a clear head to be on your toes. Your eyebrows are raised for some reason and letting them drop smoothes out your forehead and releases a tension over your whole scalp.

Will you manage to get at least four hours of sleep and if not how much coffee will you need and you can’t have much coffee or you get sick. No don’t think of that or it’ll put more tingles on your skin. It’s too hot and stuffy in this room.

It's pointless to try the meditation fall again. You’re drained. No strength for focusing. No strength for focusing on the big nothing. The thoughts are prodding and nudging at you, as you are lying on the crumpled sheets like a rag unable to shoo them off. Your eyes are heavy and there’s an iron pressing across your forehead which is the measure of your spent energy.

You know these are the dead-night visitors. You can do nothing but wait until they, like you, are drained and drop lifeless.

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