WHITE ROOM.
White lights on a white stage.
White screen lowering from the ceiling so the white-lab-coated doctor can beam her laser pointer at a giant balloonlike image of a human brain and tell us just what she plans to do with our own messed-up models.
As if we don’t already know. We’re neck-deep in this thing. We understand what we’re signing up for.
The overload of clinical whiteness makes my vision swim. I rub my stinging eyes and try to focus. But it’s stuffy in the amphitheater, and I haven’t slept in about forty-eight hours. I feel my eyelids droop and my head dip as I start to nod off. Focus, Cata.
I shift in my chair, sit up straighter, and take a deep breath. I inhale a toxic-smelling blend of antiseptic and new plastic, which ties my insides into a nauseated knot. But at least it’s woken me up.
Okay. What did I miss? The doctor, this tiny dark-haired woman, welcomed us and introduced herself and the other doctor. He sits onstage, hunched over, with his arms crossed, next to a boy who looks embarrassed to be here. I glance down at the agenda for the names:
Qiuyue Zhu, MD, DSc, PhD, and Thomas Vesper, MD, PhD
Pasithea Sleep Epidemiology Research Facility, Radcliffe Medical Center
I pinch the skin between my thumb and index finger to help me stay alert. Dr. Zhu is now pointing at a highlighted section of the brain and talking about the thalamus, “. . . one area affecting sleep, and the part we will be focusing on.”
I glance over at Barbara: she’s listening intently like she’s hearing it for the first time, but we’ve read all of this in the paperwork the researchers sent us. I know it so well that I could probably be up there giving the presentation myself. I’m just here to sign the waiver. Along with Barbara, that is, since she agreed to be my legal guardian. Two more years until I’m officially an adult. Which is strange, since I’ve felt like one since I was about nine.
My eyes wander, and I look at the others in the room—this motley assembly of families whose children are so crippled by insomnia that they’re as desperate as I am to try this radical new experiment. No one could possibly understand unless they had a sleep disorder themselves. They wouldn’t know that being so tired during the day that you can barely function and then wide-awake at night can make you crazy. Literally.
My vision starts to blur. Focus, Cata. I try.
Zhu clicks to the next slide, and up comes one of those stages-of-development graphs: a baby on the left, then a small child, adolescent, adult, and an old man far to the right. Her pointer hops back and forth between child and teen. “Most of the myelination, or development, of the brain occurs between ages five and twenty.” The red dot flicks east and lands squarely on the adolescent’s forehead like she’s hit a bull’s-eye. “Most major development has plateaued and ceased between ages eighteen and twenty. And though our brains continue to develop, after this age it’s mainly a question of deterioration and regeneration.”
I’m sixteen. So after a couple of years, it’s basically downhill. Joy.
“That is why it is important for this particular insomnia treatment—one that can actually change your brain patterns long-term—to be administered while you are young: before the brain finishes the myelination process.”
Dr.—I check the agenda again—Vesper stands now and takes the mic. He’s still hunching, and his eyes are really deep set. Cavernous. He looks like a vulture. A vulture who’s going to be messing with my mind. Not terribly reassuring.
The vulture speaks. “Your participation will help thousands of people like yourself. A week from today you will be our partners in a major breakthrough—not only in the treatment of, but in the cure for sleep disorders.”
Partners? More like test animals, I think, and scan the room to check out my fellow lab rats. In the front row, center, is a small boy wearing a knitted hat with earflaps and fingerless gloves to accessorize his short-sleeved shirt and shorts. It’s an unseasonably hot March in Larkmont. He’s writing everything down in a notebook, oblivious to his parents, who sit on either side casting worried looks at one another.
To my right there’s a boy about my age, maybe a little older. His skin is light brown, and the woman sitting next to him looks like she’s from India. From the way she touches his arm—lightly but protectively—it’s clear that she’s his mother.
The boy’s got black wavy hair and is cute in a skater-boy way—if you ignore the dark circles under his eyes and the bruise on his chin. I wonder why he’s here. What he’s got that’s bad enough to keep him from sleeping. It could be anything: OCD, depression, narcolepsy, or PTSD, like me. For the millionth time, I think of the absurdity of it all: It’s not like I’ve survived a war or some sort of horrible disaster. My trauma is just my life . . . stretching back over the years like a fire pit I’ve had to cross barefoot. It wasn’t until I got some distance from it—left my life, my family behind—that the doctors claim the post-traumatic stress kicked in. I think of my sister and brother, and guilt twists in my chest like a knife. I left them. With him. I can’t think about that now. I look at the girl in the row in front of me.
She’s blond and pale and superthin. She looks worn and drawn like everyone else in the room. But with a huge dose of sadness. Her face is so empty it’s like a bottomless pit swallowed her features. Her parents hover, more obvious with their protectiveness than the mother with her son. She’s a girl in danger . . . of what is anyone’s guess.
A boy farther to my right looks about my age. Dirty blond hair. Tanned and freckled skin. Nondescript. He fades into the background next to the flashiness of his parents, whose jet-set casual clothes and impatient expressions suggest they’re missing cocktail hour at the yacht club.
There’s a boy with a short-cropped Afro sitting next to a woman dressed in a brightly patterned tribal-looking dress with matching head wrap. The way they’re concentrating on Vesper’s words makes me wonder if they speak English. The boy looks out of place in a way only a foreigner can.
And then there are two parents sitting alone. Holding hands. Not in a loving way, but like they’re trying to keep each other from falling off a cliff. Their faces are drawn. Gaunt. They are going through something bad—no question. Their child isn’t with them, but they obviously belong here.
The skater boy leans over the empty seat between us and whispers, “Bet I can read your mind.”
I glance back at Barbara. She and his mom are both absorbed in the presentation and have decided to ignore us.
“Go ahead. Give it a try,” I whisper back.
“You’re thinking, How did I get thrown in with this room full of weirdos?”
I can’t help but smile. “You’re half-right. Room full of weirdos . . . check. But I actually included myself in the freak-fest. I feel right at home here.”
He reaches out his hand. “I’m Fergus.”
I shake it. “Cata. What are you in here for?”
“‘Insomnia stemming from narcolepsy,’” he says, using air quotes. “You?”
“Insomnia stemming from PTSD.”
He nods, and looks like he wants to ask more—what trauma I am post—but is polite enough not to.
“I feel like we’re in one of those twelve-step meetings. Like I should stand up and say, ‘Hi, I’m Cata, and I’m an insomniac.’”
“Yeah, but instead of group hugs, we get our brains fried.” This boy is funny, and I immediately feel a camaraderie.
Fergus’s mom smiles apologetically and pats him on the arm. “Honey, you should really be listening.”
He shrugs helplessly, but leans back in and, after a brief hesitation, whispers, “Are you scared?”
I nod. “You?”
“Shitless,” he responds.
“I know . . . We could ask for adjoining beds so we can hold hands while we get our brains fried,” I say, trying to act brave and flippant, and then realize how what I just said could be read. Did I just engage in nervous flirting? I wait for a blush, but none comes. I’m too tired to even be embarrassed.
Fergus smiles widely, apparently reading my thoughts, or an approximation of them.
“Honey,” Fergus’s mom says. He wiggles his fingers good-bye.
I turn my attention to the stage as the kid who was sitting next to Vesper stands and shuffles over to join him at the mic. “This is Charles,” Vesper says, “the sole member of test group Alpha. He’s the reason your Beta group even exists. Just three months ago, Charles was like you. Sleepless and desperate for a solution. Now he experiences full nights of sleep.”
Full nights of sleep. Those words are like a drug. Too tempting to be legal. Too promising to be true. I look around. The others want it as badly as I do.
“Does anyone have a question for Charles?” Vesper asks, and the boy in the front row’s hand shoots up.
“You mentioned that one of the side effects of the treatment is short-term memory loss,” he asks. “How long will it last?”
“The retrograde amnesia produced by the treatment will only cause you to forget events that happened in the days or weeks before treatment,” the vulture responds. “But that is short-lived, and you should regain your complete memory quickly. Charles, would you like to share how this went for you?”
The “sole member of test group Alpha” starts talking, but I’m not listening anymore. This meeting feels like a theatrical production. The white room, white lab coats, medical words, and technical images are all meant to lull us into a sense of security. Place yourselves in our hands. We know what we’re doing.
And what, exactly, will they be doing? Well, in a few short days, they’ll be laying us out in a lab, fitting our heads with electrodes, and running electrical currents through our brains until our insomnia is fried into extinction. They’ll be shocking us into normalcy.
Yes, I’m scared. But if this is what I have to do to be able to sleep again, I’m ready to sign my life away.