Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer…

My therapist says humming or thinking of a little jingle in my head will help distract me and make the time move easier. Something catchy, something easy to remember.

Take one down, pass it around…

They say it will help ease my heart rate and calm me in severe stress, help me keep my bearings when things seem like they’re going to go over the edge. Like being conscious for a seizure and waiting for it to pass.

Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.

They reassure me it’s not real. I look into the eyes, and the tightly pressed lips. Skin the color of white yogurt. They say it happens to so many people. I look into its feminine face, somehow malicious despite there being no facial expression whatsoever. It’s usually much further away from this, it’s only watched in the past. My mental voice takes liberties, changing the pitch and tone of the song to try and calm me down. Comical as it is, I’m sweating bullets and terrified.

Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall…

Hypnagogic Hallucination. Or as the internet prefers: Sleep Paralysis. The hallucination, or “demon” part, is sworn to be purely fictional, just a fabrication of the human mind as the gears shift from wakefulness to slumber.

Ninety-nine bottles of beer…

They swear it’s not real. Pure harmless imagination. Like that sensation of falling, or a bicycle throwing you over the handlebars. Whatever you see, it can’t hurt you, they tell me over and over. Melatonin, Benadryl, none of it is strong enough to keep me out for the night. Sometimes she starts in the closet, other times outside the window. Always hunched over, arms dangling. But she never comes this close.

Take one down…

One of her thin legs swings up and around, planting unnaturally on the bed. The way she moves, it doesn’t make sense. It’s impossible. In my stasis, I look at her foot, eyes painfully straining to see it on the quilt I’m sweating under. If it isn’t real, why does the mattress cave under her weight?

Pass it around…

Sing or hum your tune and calmly wait for it to pass. It will pass. It’s just a dream. You’re just recalibrating to be awake. Their words of comfort jumble with the panicked scream echoing in my musical monologue. The climb and mount is almost instantaneous. Somehow I missed it, even without the ability to blink.

Ninety-nine. Bottles. Of. Beer. On. The. Wall.

Her eyes stare into mine. Black, soulless. For the first time since her visits, she smiles. The hair caresses my face. I hear her breathing. My tune is a dying whisper, barely audible. The eyes roll back, like a shark. The mouth opens impossibly wide, her throat a dark tunnel to nothing. I feel my body lift upside-down, pulled in bursts, like a bird with a worm.

Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall…