The Somnambulist

We had been married for years, happily, lovingly, and simply married. We would work our respective jobs, he at the library, me teaching high schoolers proper grammar usage and writing skills, then we would come home and see each other and be overwhelmed with the happiness that comes with knowing that all day, all this person wanted was to see you. We would watch obscure movies while drinking red wine and eating macaroni and cheese before falling asleep on the couch in each other's arms. We really had a beautiful relationship that, in my mind, completed us as people.
But lately he's developed a habit of disappearing. Not literally disappearing into thin air, but rather mentally vanishing, like taking a leave of absence from reality. He's still here, but he's not on the same plane with me anymore. I suppose it started when we were both 28 years old.
I came home from work, but he wasn't anywhere to be found. I figured he was going to be home later, so I cooked macaroni and cheese for both of us as was our Friday evening wont, but he still didn't show up. Worried, I decided to see if his car had shown up yet, and strangely enough, it had. It was sitting in our driveway in all of its blue and chrome glory, present and imposing, intimidating because it had apparently driven itself into the driveway because my husband was missing completely. In a fit, I leapt out the door to see if I could find him, and I doubt that I would have if it weren't for his shoes and socks tossed haphazardly at the foot of our tree. My eyes craned upwards to find him curled up on a high branch with his pants rolled up staring intently at a book. I called his name, but he didn't respond, so I ran to the foot of the tree to get closer. All it did was make me feel farther, more distant than before. He was so high up through a bramble of barren branches, farther away from me than the sky. I called his name a few more times, but always to no answer, so I decided to climb up after him.
I worked my way up the tree, cutting myself here, scratching myself there, slipping, tripping, nearly falling time and time again, but I struggled on with determination to reach my husband somehow. Soon, I was within feet of him. I could reach out and grab the book away from him. But there was something in his eyes: an intensity that seemed alien and far out of place, which I had never seen before. I reached out and touched his leg, whispering his name while I did it. When he looked up from the book, he was at first shocked to see me. Or rather scared, his glance held more fear than surprise. What's more, it seemed to be fear of me, not of heights or location.
My first impression had been that he had for some reason climbed up there specifically to read, but reading the book was only a part of his state. Really he was all things entwined together: reading a tattered copy of Once and Future King, not wearing shoes or socks, being at this altitude in this tree specifically, ignoring me, and whatever else was going through is mind. Eliminate one, and the rest comes crashing down.
He started shaking with fear, and when I reached out to help him, he cringed, sliding farther away from me. I watched him fall from the top of our tree through all the helpless branches and straight to the ground, where his leg broke from the fall.
When he awoke in the hospital, he said he didn't remember any of what I said he had done. He didn't remember being in the tree or falling out of it, just driving home from the library and waking up in the hospital. The doctor listened almost half-heartedly to the report, then decided that my husband was probably sleepwalking.
I protested, “But he's never sleepwalked before. Why should he start now?” To which the doctor replied that there could be any number of reasons for it. Stress. Family history. General confusion. Any number of reasons. Then he left the room so my husband could heal.
That was the first time I saw it: him living a distant and separate life, living a dream. But it hasn't been the last time. I see him lost and far away all the time, sitting on our porch, on the couch, even driving in the car. He adopts a placid but intense visage which doesn't exist in the real world, but somehow does in his world. He seems to look through me. Not constantly, but many times. And there's nothing I can do about it. And I feel helpless.
But more than that, I feel left behind.
I see him perched high in the tree, or playing in the playground, completely unaware of what he's doing, and I imagine his freedom. The world peels away leaving only him and his imagination and what he wants to do, and it embraces him. But he always goes alone. He never takes me with him. And I can't help wishing that I was sick like him, that I was degenerating slowly in my mind like he is so I could join him, if only once.
Instead, he sits beside me, miles away from where I am. And I know that if I touch him, he would wake up. So I don't. I watch him live in his world from mine, and pray that he comes back, if only to say hello.