I Wanted to Sleep and Never Wake Up
Sometimes life becomes too much
The novel After Dark by Haruki Murakami features a character named Eri, who is asleep the entire time. True, the events take place overnight, but she didn’t just fall asleep. When the book opens, she’s already been sleeping for months.
Eri lives with her parents and sister Mari, the protagonist. Nobody knows what happened, they just came in to find her asleep one day and she never woke up. They try rousing her but she doesn’t respond. They bring her food trays but they're removed untouched.
The family watches uneasily as she continues to sleep. It’s not a tossing and turning uneasy rest, but a peaceful slumber, her hair flowing across the pillow. She seems at ease even though she can’t be reached from the conscious realm.
There was a point in my life when I envied Eri tremendously.
A year prior, my dad started acting in ways that were out of character. A lifelong traveler, he suddenly resisted going on trips, saying it was too hard to pack. He began fretting about everything — once having a breakdown because he couldn’t find an ATM.
My siblings and I discussed these episodes, uncertainty creeping into our tones. We all kept quiet but were internally coming to the same conclusion. It took me months to say…
