Sleep
She’s not doing so well these days, but then she hasn’t really been well for a while now. She was just rolling around in the bed again, thrashing about as usual – that was what woke me. Not that it takes much to wake me these days – a moan, a movement, a sigh – I really haven’t slept too well for ages. You get used to it. It’s funny how that happened – I used to be the heaviest sleeper in my family – certainly my mother used to complain about how she that could never get me out of bed. Not now, though – now I can’t stay in bed for long without worrying about her. Looking at the clock radio by the bed I see it’s 3.54 though, so at least I got a few hours of sleep in.
She’s sweating a lot – she does that every night – so I go into the bathroom to get a face cloth to mop her brow. The apartment is very cool tonight, which helps. I like it when I have this silence to myself; these quiet, calm moments where I can think. It’s the little moments of peace that help the most, I think. I find myself thinking about all kinds of things at times like this, when I am running the tap over the face cloth or something equally mundane, and it lets me get away from things for a while. I walk back into the bedroom and towel the sweat from her forehead, her brow creased as if in deep thought, and the coolness calms her, straightening her brow and bringing her some relief. I used to use those moist wipes to do this, but it leaves a residue of something on her head which makes her sweat more, leaving me to repeat the process more often. The face cloth is a lot cheaper over time too, which helps.
The sheets are soaked with her sweat, which is causing me trouble at the moment as the washing machine has broken down and I don’t really know anyone who can fix it for me – I’m no good at these types of mechanical repairs. Guys are supposed to be able to do things like that, but I’ve never been any good at fixing things really. I’m probably not alone in that though – no one seems to fix things anymore, or maybe it’s just that more and more products are built to be replaced rather than repaired – it’s better for the bottom line of the manufacturers, I guess. It doesn’t help out people like us though – people who are scraping to get by. I’ve been washing the sheets in the bathtub lately, but it never seems to do that good a job, so I have to do it more often. It doesn’t help that she is a sweat machine these days, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I was using a lot of bleach to try and clean the sheets more effectively, but she is hyper sensitive to so many things these days that I had to stop – it was irritating her skin so much that there was no point carrying on with it. Perhaps I’ll ask Martin at work if he knows someone who can do cheap repairs on washing machines – he seems to know someone who can do any job.
I’m awake now, so I’ll sit here on the chair at the end of the bed and watch her for a while. I love watching her in her sleep – it sometimes seems to be the only time she’s at peace these days. I used to like to sit here like this and smoke a cigarette at this time in the morning, but I can’t do that anymore – it starts her coughing, and that’s to be avoided at all costs now. I could go outside and smoke, but I hardly ever smoke these days anyway so there’s no point really. I’d rather just sit and watch her, to be honest.
The curtains are open a few inches, and the street light outside our window is casting enough light in for me to see her. She likes having the curtains slightly open at night – it’s almost like a night light for her. She’s funny like that – she’s always needed a bit of light in the room before she can sleep, so the curtains are almost always open like this. I prefer to sleep in the dark, but I don’t mind that much. She closes them in the morning to get dressed though, and they tend to stay that way until night falls again. The only time she wouldn’t open the curtains was if we were going to have sex – the simple act of closing the curtains used to be so arousing for me, as I knew what was to come next. It’s a funny sort of Pavlovian reflex action I had, I guess. She would still want to have some light though, so she would usually turn on the little television at the other end of the room before we could start. Occasionally we would be in bed watching the television and she would get in the mood and get up to close the curtains, and I would pull her back down into the bed and not let her up, which would excite her enormously. She once admitted to me that it was more exciting that way, as she would feel as though someone was watching from across the road while we rolled and moaned around the bed. No one could really see in – the split in the curtains was too small, and the street light would cause a reflection outside the window, but I never told her that. Sometimes we need our fantasies.
It’s strange to think about sex now – it feels like remembering a holiday in another country from long ago, with friends you no longer see. It’s probably stranger that I don’t really think about it anymore – with her current condition it’s not really an option, and somehow you just get used to not thinking about it. Or, more accurately, you don’t even realise that you’re not thinking about it anymore. I wonder what a psychiatrist would make of that? Something Freudian, no doubt. They always seem to look for problems that aren’t there – there are too many people looking for someone to tell them why life seems so hard for them alone, when it’s really just hard for us all, and all we can do is try and cope with things as best we can.
Her breast has fallen out from under her slip, I’ve just noticed – she has a few little silky type slips to wear in bed, as anything else just makes her sweat too much, but she’s lost so much weight that nothing seems to fit her anymore. I keep offering to go and buy her some new clothes, something that fits a little better, but she tells me that it’s just a waste of money that would be better spent elsewhere. She’s probably right, but I feel bad that she has to wear clothes that are too big for her – she looks like a little girl wearing her mother’s clothes. I might go and buy her some new slips next week anyway – that’s what she wears most these days, and it would make me feel as though I’m looking after her a little better. I move over to the bed and rearrange her slip so that she’s covered, and she frowns a little as though I’ve done something wrong again and then murmurs to herself, turning over and relaxing her face again. I thought she was going to start coughing, but thankfully she doesn’t and I can move back to my chair and breathe again.
I can hear some noise outside, and looking through the open window I see one of those cars go past our corner on the main street, those cars that are low and black and sleek. He’s playing some loud music, and the bass is turned up so high that I can feel the vibrations as he goes past. I can’t understand why he plays that type of music at this time of the morning – perhaps he needs something to keep himself awake, and that was all he had in the car. I used to love driving around at times like this – I used to play dark, moody music and enjoy the feeling of being the only person in the world awake as I swept through the damp suburbs, the streets stretching and unfolding for me alone while the houses slept all around me. Nights like that I used to wish could go on forever.
She has to go to the doctor again tomorrow morning – she probably averages one or two visits a week these days. The doctor’s a nice enough guy, but sometimes I feel as though he doesn’t really understand the pain she’s in. Professional distance, I guess. I couldn’t imagine doing his job though – it’s hard enough taking care of her alone without having a stream of other sick or injured people day in and day out. I don’t know how he tunes out the pain. It takes a good half an hour to take her up to the surgery these days, even though it couldn’t be much more than 200 metres away. That was what finished my old job for me – I couldn’t leave her to walk up there on her own, and so I was taking more and more time away from the office to help her there and back. With the economy being what it is I can’t really blame them for letting me go – there’s really no space for anyone who isn’t producing at their maximum these days – and they gave me the best severance package they could. My boss felt dreadful about laying me off, I could tell, and they did give me a wonderful leaving party in the pub next to the office. I don’t really miss it too much - I can’t say I loved working in an office every day, although the money did come in handy.
Working in the pub has its advantages though, not least the flexible hours I work there. Martin’s great about giving me a bit of time here and there if I need it, and not every landlord would be quite so understanding. I guess it helps that I only work around the corner from home too – if something comes up I can pop back for a few minutes and sort it out, and the surgery is only five minutes the other way. Well, five minutes at my pace, anyway. And with the smoke free lounge out the back she can have a little rest on the way back without starting to cough. Unfortunately I work in the main lounge, so when I get back home after closing time I have to go into the bathroom, take my clothes off and wash myself before I can get into the bedroom to see her, but that’s no real problem. Like everything else, once you get into a routine it’s fine. And usually she’s asleep by the time I get in, so all I have to do is replace her glass of water before I get into bed for a few hours.
We had a bit of a problem with that once. We used to have two glasses next to the bed at night, one with water and one for her to spit the black bile she produces into, and one night she spat into the wrong glass. It’s easily done, as she doesn’t really wake up completely to spit after all this time. I didn’t see what she had done, as I was half asleep myself, and of course she later needed a sip of water and ended up swallowing some of the bile. The coughing fit afterwards was one of the worst she’d ever had up until then – it was so bad that I had to call a minicab to take us down to the local casualty ward, and I felt so guilty when I was telling the young doctor on duty how she’d got into this state. Sometimes medical staff make me feel as though I don’t take enough care of her – I hate how they can do that to me. Since then I replaced her spittoon with a small juice bottle, and I moved her glass a bit further away until she got used to the new arrangement. It’s much easier too – I can just pour the sludge down the toilet or throw it away and get a new bottle, and we don’t have any stained glasses in the apartment now. If I need some water myself I just get up and get myself some – there’s no point complicating the process.
I can see through the window that the first signs of light are staining the sky outside, the sky changing from the orangey colour the city lights create to a sort of deeper violet. It’s the coldest time of the day right now, the time just before the sun rises, warming up in preparation for another day. I used to sell newspapers from a makeshift stand over the local train station just before I finished school and went off to university, and one morning one of my customers told me that was the coldest part of the day. He was right though, although I wish he hadn’t told me, as I felt the cold so much more after that then I ever had before – the power of suggestion, perhaps. It’s funny the things you remember. The street light is still too strong for much of the natural light to make it into the bedroom – I’d have to go into the kitchen to see it a little better. Sometimes I find myself staring out that window while I’m waiting for the kettle to boil if I make a cup of tea. I don’t really feel like one now though, so I won’t bother looking.
She looks so peaceful right now, with the light from the window casting small shadows under her cheekbones, the cheekbones that first attracted me to her back in the old days. I’ve always been a sucker for good cheekbones, and she had the best ones on campus. I remember seeing her in the bar, across the room from me and standing with her mates, thinking I’d never have a chance of pulling her. I did though – it’s incredible how alcohol can bring you out of your natural shyness and make you do things you wouldn’t otherwise do. Of course her cheekbones weren’t as prominent then as they are now, but she’s lost a lot of weight since then. Sometimes she feels more like a doll than a human – when I pick her up to carry her into the lounge room it almost feels as though she’s not there already.
I’ve always carried her though – it’s one of those funny little things we’ve always done, one of those things that couples do for themselves that no one else ever sees. I was stronger back then – I was going to the gym that work provided for us, and was in the best shape of my life – but it is too easy to carry her around now. I don’t work out anymore though – it would feel as though I was showing off in some way, flaunting my health in front of her. Sometimes I feel as though I should go for walks more to keep my health up, but I never seem to find the time anymore. And going for a walk would feel like a chore without her next to me, I guess. I miss our walks though – we used to walk around the neighbourhood, looking at all the houses as we strolled the roads and laneways around our place, making up silly stories about the people behind all those doors, and planning our lives together in a place like that. Sometimes when we walk to the surgery I imagine her thinking about our walks, but I never ask her what she’s thinking about. Sometimes you need to keep your thoughts your own.
I still enjoy carrying her around though, even though it’s changed from carrying her on my back to carrying her in my arms. She’s not really strong enough to hold on to me these days, and I wouldn’t want her to fall. Sometimes I get strange thoughts in my head, and I imagine that she’s completely hollow and would break in half if I let her touch the ground. I guess it’s not that far fetched – after two operations she’s had a lot of her intestines removed, so I don’t really know how much of her is still in there, and how much is being eaten slowly, day by day, by the dark stuff inside of her. But I don’t like to think about that – nobody would – so I usually focus on the job at hand. If I’m carrying her back into the bedroom I usually notice the smell in there – sick people always seem to leave a smell in the room they inhabit most – and I put her down gently on the bed and then light a candle or something. She likes candles – the light doesn’t hurt her eyes, and the flame works on dispersing the smell a bit.
The other day I was downstairs in the pub, connecting a new keg to one of the taps, when Martin asked me what I was going to do. I’m going to hook up the keg and go back upstairs, I said and he replied no, I mean when she gets worse, and that kind of knocked me back a bit because I really wasn’t expecting a question like that. Or maybe it was because I don’t think about it too often. I stammered something about dealing with things as they come, and to his credit he could see that I was a bit embarrassed and left it at that. But the thing is I really don’t think about the future much these days – there doesn’t seem to be much point in trying to plan for the unplannable, and in a way I’d rather think about what we are doing now rather than something abstract in the future. If I was being smart I could say that I am living for the moment, but that doesn’t seem quite true to me – certainly life gives me enough to think about now without contemplating some vague idea of what may lay ahead. To deal with this in any other way would just feel a bit strange to me.
I’ve just read back over what I’ve written here, and it occurs to me that perhaps it seems as though I’m not entirely happy with my life at the moment, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Because I look at the clock and it says that it’s 6.13, and looking out the window I can see the first rays of sun coming up to greet the day, and I know that she’ll soon be stirring slightly, and she’ll get that funny little crease in the middle of her forehead that tells me she wants me to come back to bed. And when that happens I’ll put down my pad and pen and I’ll crawl back into our bed, on the one good side of the two single beds we have pushed together to form our bed, the beds that we never got around to replacing with a double bed, the beds that we secretly like that way even if we sometimes moan about them, and I’ll slide in behind her and spoon into her body, my arm around her waist, and she’ll uncrease her brow and push back into me, maybe even give me that little unconscious smile she does when I lie with her like that. And she’ll protect me from all the things outside of our little world, and I’ll protect her too. And that will be enough for right now.
(October 2001)
She’s sweating a lot – she does that every night – so I go into the bathroom to get a face cloth to mop her brow. The apartment is very cool tonight, which helps. I like it when I have this silence to myself; these quiet, calm moments where I can think. It’s the little moments of peace that help the most, I think. I find myself thinking about all kinds of things at times like this, when I am running the tap over the face cloth or something equally mundane, and it lets me get away from things for a while. I walk back into the bedroom and towel the sweat from her forehead, her brow creased as if in deep thought, and the coolness calms her, straightening her brow and bringing her some relief. I used to use those moist wipes to do this, but it leaves a residue of something on her head which makes her sweat more, leaving me to repeat the process more often. The face cloth is a lot cheaper over time too, which helps.
The sheets are soaked with her sweat, which is causing me trouble at the moment as the washing machine has broken down and I don’t really know anyone who can fix it for me – I’m no good at these types of mechanical repairs. Guys are supposed to be able to do things like that, but I’ve never been any good at fixing things really. I’m probably not alone in that though – no one seems to fix things anymore, or maybe it’s just that more and more products are built to be replaced rather than repaired – it’s better for the bottom line of the manufacturers, I guess. It doesn’t help out people like us though – people who are scraping to get by. I’ve been washing the sheets in the bathtub lately, but it never seems to do that good a job, so I have to do it more often. It doesn’t help that she is a sweat machine these days, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I was using a lot of bleach to try and clean the sheets more effectively, but she is hyper sensitive to so many things these days that I had to stop – it was irritating her skin so much that there was no point carrying on with it. Perhaps I’ll ask Martin at work if he knows someone who can do cheap repairs on washing machines – he seems to know someone who can do any job.
I’m awake now, so I’ll sit here on the chair at the end of the bed and watch her for a while. I love watching her in her sleep – it sometimes seems to be the only time she’s at peace these days. I used to like to sit here like this and smoke a cigarette at this time in the morning, but I can’t do that anymore – it starts her coughing, and that’s to be avoided at all costs now. I could go outside and smoke, but I hardly ever smoke these days anyway so there’s no point really. I’d rather just sit and watch her, to be honest.
The curtains are open a few inches, and the street light outside our window is casting enough light in for me to see her. She likes having the curtains slightly open at night – it’s almost like a night light for her. She’s funny like that – she’s always needed a bit of light in the room before she can sleep, so the curtains are almost always open like this. I prefer to sleep in the dark, but I don’t mind that much. She closes them in the morning to get dressed though, and they tend to stay that way until night falls again. The only time she wouldn’t open the curtains was if we were going to have sex – the simple act of closing the curtains used to be so arousing for me, as I knew what was to come next. It’s a funny sort of Pavlovian reflex action I had, I guess. She would still want to have some light though, so she would usually turn on the little television at the other end of the room before we could start. Occasionally we would be in bed watching the television and she would get in the mood and get up to close the curtains, and I would pull her back down into the bed and not let her up, which would excite her enormously. She once admitted to me that it was more exciting that way, as she would feel as though someone was watching from across the road while we rolled and moaned around the bed. No one could really see in – the split in the curtains was too small, and the street light would cause a reflection outside the window, but I never told her that. Sometimes we need our fantasies.
It’s strange to think about sex now – it feels like remembering a holiday in another country from long ago, with friends you no longer see. It’s probably stranger that I don’t really think about it anymore – with her current condition it’s not really an option, and somehow you just get used to not thinking about it. Or, more accurately, you don’t even realise that you’re not thinking about it anymore. I wonder what a psychiatrist would make of that? Something Freudian, no doubt. They always seem to look for problems that aren’t there – there are too many people looking for someone to tell them why life seems so hard for them alone, when it’s really just hard for us all, and all we can do is try and cope with things as best we can.
Her breast has fallen out from under her slip, I’ve just noticed – she has a few little silky type slips to wear in bed, as anything else just makes her sweat too much, but she’s lost so much weight that nothing seems to fit her anymore. I keep offering to go and buy her some new clothes, something that fits a little better, but she tells me that it’s just a waste of money that would be better spent elsewhere. She’s probably right, but I feel bad that she has to wear clothes that are too big for her – she looks like a little girl wearing her mother’s clothes. I might go and buy her some new slips next week anyway – that’s what she wears most these days, and it would make me feel as though I’m looking after her a little better. I move over to the bed and rearrange her slip so that she’s covered, and she frowns a little as though I’ve done something wrong again and then murmurs to herself, turning over and relaxing her face again. I thought she was going to start coughing, but thankfully she doesn’t and I can move back to my chair and breathe again.
I can hear some noise outside, and looking through the open window I see one of those cars go past our corner on the main street, those cars that are low and black and sleek. He’s playing some loud music, and the bass is turned up so high that I can feel the vibrations as he goes past. I can’t understand why he plays that type of music at this time of the morning – perhaps he needs something to keep himself awake, and that was all he had in the car. I used to love driving around at times like this – I used to play dark, moody music and enjoy the feeling of being the only person in the world awake as I swept through the damp suburbs, the streets stretching and unfolding for me alone while the houses slept all around me. Nights like that I used to wish could go on forever.
She has to go to the doctor again tomorrow morning – she probably averages one or two visits a week these days. The doctor’s a nice enough guy, but sometimes I feel as though he doesn’t really understand the pain she’s in. Professional distance, I guess. I couldn’t imagine doing his job though – it’s hard enough taking care of her alone without having a stream of other sick or injured people day in and day out. I don’t know how he tunes out the pain. It takes a good half an hour to take her up to the surgery these days, even though it couldn’t be much more than 200 metres away. That was what finished my old job for me – I couldn’t leave her to walk up there on her own, and so I was taking more and more time away from the office to help her there and back. With the economy being what it is I can’t really blame them for letting me go – there’s really no space for anyone who isn’t producing at their maximum these days – and they gave me the best severance package they could. My boss felt dreadful about laying me off, I could tell, and they did give me a wonderful leaving party in the pub next to the office. I don’t really miss it too much - I can’t say I loved working in an office every day, although the money did come in handy.
Working in the pub has its advantages though, not least the flexible hours I work there. Martin’s great about giving me a bit of time here and there if I need it, and not every landlord would be quite so understanding. I guess it helps that I only work around the corner from home too – if something comes up I can pop back for a few minutes and sort it out, and the surgery is only five minutes the other way. Well, five minutes at my pace, anyway. And with the smoke free lounge out the back she can have a little rest on the way back without starting to cough. Unfortunately I work in the main lounge, so when I get back home after closing time I have to go into the bathroom, take my clothes off and wash myself before I can get into the bedroom to see her, but that’s no real problem. Like everything else, once you get into a routine it’s fine. And usually she’s asleep by the time I get in, so all I have to do is replace her glass of water before I get into bed for a few hours.
We had a bit of a problem with that once. We used to have two glasses next to the bed at night, one with water and one for her to spit the black bile she produces into, and one night she spat into the wrong glass. It’s easily done, as she doesn’t really wake up completely to spit after all this time. I didn’t see what she had done, as I was half asleep myself, and of course she later needed a sip of water and ended up swallowing some of the bile. The coughing fit afterwards was one of the worst she’d ever had up until then – it was so bad that I had to call a minicab to take us down to the local casualty ward, and I felt so guilty when I was telling the young doctor on duty how she’d got into this state. Sometimes medical staff make me feel as though I don’t take enough care of her – I hate how they can do that to me. Since then I replaced her spittoon with a small juice bottle, and I moved her glass a bit further away until she got used to the new arrangement. It’s much easier too – I can just pour the sludge down the toilet or throw it away and get a new bottle, and we don’t have any stained glasses in the apartment now. If I need some water myself I just get up and get myself some – there’s no point complicating the process.
I can see through the window that the first signs of light are staining the sky outside, the sky changing from the orangey colour the city lights create to a sort of deeper violet. It’s the coldest time of the day right now, the time just before the sun rises, warming up in preparation for another day. I used to sell newspapers from a makeshift stand over the local train station just before I finished school and went off to university, and one morning one of my customers told me that was the coldest part of the day. He was right though, although I wish he hadn’t told me, as I felt the cold so much more after that then I ever had before – the power of suggestion, perhaps. It’s funny the things you remember. The street light is still too strong for much of the natural light to make it into the bedroom – I’d have to go into the kitchen to see it a little better. Sometimes I find myself staring out that window while I’m waiting for the kettle to boil if I make a cup of tea. I don’t really feel like one now though, so I won’t bother looking.
She looks so peaceful right now, with the light from the window casting small shadows under her cheekbones, the cheekbones that first attracted me to her back in the old days. I’ve always been a sucker for good cheekbones, and she had the best ones on campus. I remember seeing her in the bar, across the room from me and standing with her mates, thinking I’d never have a chance of pulling her. I did though – it’s incredible how alcohol can bring you out of your natural shyness and make you do things you wouldn’t otherwise do. Of course her cheekbones weren’t as prominent then as they are now, but she’s lost a lot of weight since then. Sometimes she feels more like a doll than a human – when I pick her up to carry her into the lounge room it almost feels as though she’s not there already.
I’ve always carried her though – it’s one of those funny little things we’ve always done, one of those things that couples do for themselves that no one else ever sees. I was stronger back then – I was going to the gym that work provided for us, and was in the best shape of my life – but it is too easy to carry her around now. I don’t work out anymore though – it would feel as though I was showing off in some way, flaunting my health in front of her. Sometimes I feel as though I should go for walks more to keep my health up, but I never seem to find the time anymore. And going for a walk would feel like a chore without her next to me, I guess. I miss our walks though – we used to walk around the neighbourhood, looking at all the houses as we strolled the roads and laneways around our place, making up silly stories about the people behind all those doors, and planning our lives together in a place like that. Sometimes when we walk to the surgery I imagine her thinking about our walks, but I never ask her what she’s thinking about. Sometimes you need to keep your thoughts your own.
I still enjoy carrying her around though, even though it’s changed from carrying her on my back to carrying her in my arms. She’s not really strong enough to hold on to me these days, and I wouldn’t want her to fall. Sometimes I get strange thoughts in my head, and I imagine that she’s completely hollow and would break in half if I let her touch the ground. I guess it’s not that far fetched – after two operations she’s had a lot of her intestines removed, so I don’t really know how much of her is still in there, and how much is being eaten slowly, day by day, by the dark stuff inside of her. But I don’t like to think about that – nobody would – so I usually focus on the job at hand. If I’m carrying her back into the bedroom I usually notice the smell in there – sick people always seem to leave a smell in the room they inhabit most – and I put her down gently on the bed and then light a candle or something. She likes candles – the light doesn’t hurt her eyes, and the flame works on dispersing the smell a bit.
The other day I was downstairs in the pub, connecting a new keg to one of the taps, when Martin asked me what I was going to do. I’m going to hook up the keg and go back upstairs, I said and he replied no, I mean when she gets worse, and that kind of knocked me back a bit because I really wasn’t expecting a question like that. Or maybe it was because I don’t think about it too often. I stammered something about dealing with things as they come, and to his credit he could see that I was a bit embarrassed and left it at that. But the thing is I really don’t think about the future much these days – there doesn’t seem to be much point in trying to plan for the unplannable, and in a way I’d rather think about what we are doing now rather than something abstract in the future. If I was being smart I could say that I am living for the moment, but that doesn’t seem quite true to me – certainly life gives me enough to think about now without contemplating some vague idea of what may lay ahead. To deal with this in any other way would just feel a bit strange to me.
I’ve just read back over what I’ve written here, and it occurs to me that perhaps it seems as though I’m not entirely happy with my life at the moment, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Because I look at the clock and it says that it’s 6.13, and looking out the window I can see the first rays of sun coming up to greet the day, and I know that she’ll soon be stirring slightly, and she’ll get that funny little crease in the middle of her forehead that tells me she wants me to come back to bed. And when that happens I’ll put down my pad and pen and I’ll crawl back into our bed, on the one good side of the two single beds we have pushed together to form our bed, the beds that we never got around to replacing with a double bed, the beds that we secretly like that way even if we sometimes moan about them, and I’ll slide in behind her and spoon into her body, my arm around her waist, and she’ll uncrease her brow and push back into me, maybe even give me that little unconscious smile she does when I lie with her like that. And she’ll protect me from all the things outside of our little world, and I’ll protect her too. And that will be enough for right now.
(October 2001)