HUM by Dan Hawley (book club reads .TXT) 📗

He scanned the waiting room, thinking he might see the strange boy and haggard woman staring at him again. He did not.

“I’ll have you fill out this questionnaire and sign a waiver before we head up, please.”

The receptionist handed Jason a clipboard from her chair behind the desk.

“A waiver, huh?” Jason joked, “should I be worried?”

His hidden smile faded against her lack of humor. The receptionist simply held the clipboard out with a flat, emotionless expression. Jason cleared his throat, nodded, and took the board.

Once Jason had answered the questions and signed the waiver, the receptionist led him up the stairs to the second floor. Long hardwood boards passed underfoot as they walked down the corridor. The first door on the left was closed. Jason peered into the first room on his right. It wasn’t nosiness; at least, not entirely. There is a certain natural tendency to look in a doorway as one passes.

In his mind, leading up to his appointment, Jason had pictured the sleep clinic test rooms similar to hospital rooms. He expected hospital beds with sterile white sheets and stainless-steel instruments sitting on stainless-steel trays. He pictured it all under cold fluorescent lights with the smell of antiseptic in the air.

Instead, the room he saw as he passed was very much like a regular bedroom. It was warm and inviting, illuminated by soft, yellow light. A cozy bed with a headboard was against the wall, and a boy was lying under the brown and forest green blankets. The boy’s face turned to the door as Jason passed. Their tired eyes met briefly. It sent a shiver down Jason’s spine.

Was that the same boy from yesterday? he wondered. It was hard to tell without the old school clothes and the odd lady who had hovered over the boy before. The receptionist’s voice broke through Jason’s thoughts.

“On the right, Mr. Steele.”

Jason shook the thoughts from his head and turned into the room.

His room appeared different than the little boy’s. It was more similar to the hospital room he had envisioned. There was a hospital bed with white sheets and a light-blue blanket. A machine was beside it, wires coming out of it like a mechanical octopus. The fluorescent light was bright and made Jason squint in the contrast of the comparatively dim hallway.

Jason walked over and put his bag down on the bed. He slipped his light jacket off and hung it on the hook provided. Jason noticed three cameras mounted to the ceiling and a small half bathroom with a toilet and sink in the far corner.

“Please make yourself comfortable; Dr. Luu will be in shortly to see you.”

“Thanks,” Jason said, wondering if getting comfortable was going to be possible here.

He put his phone down on the side table and noticed there was no drawer.

Probably for the best, he thought as he made his way to the bathroom.

He didn’t hear Dr. Luu enter his room while he was washing his hands, so Jason jumped back an inch when he turned around again.

“Shit!” Jason’s heart thumped twice in his chest. “Scared the hell outta me, doc.”

“Sorry about that, Jason. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The doctor stood at the foot of the bed, holding a tablet against his chest.

“Shall we begin?”

* * *

Bubbles fizzed and popped against Samantha’s soft skin. Gentle music was playing softly in the background as she breathed in the calming aroma of lavender and chamomile. The water was warm and soothing to her tense muscles.

She often enjoyed a nice bath after an evening yoga session, but it had been some time since she practiced. Too many distractions, she thought. Not in the right headspace. Ironically, part of doing yoga was getting you and keeping you in a positive headspace.

But we don’t always do what’s best for us, do we? No, she agreed with herself.

Sam sank herself deeper into the soapy water. Her dark hair was tied up with the only piece of fabric that she wore. White froth hugged against the parts of her body that would not be drowned below the surface. Her breasts floated like two desert islands upon which any pirate would gladly strangle his own mother to be stranded.

She tried to relax.

It worked, to an extent, but her thoughts kept dwelling on Jason and how the test was going. She thought he would have texted her when he got there, but he hadn’t. She still hoped for a text before he went to bed. Maybe he would. She sat up, reached over and tapped her phone to check the time, then took a sip of tea. She slid back down the smooth tub until most of her body was submerged again.

Samantha wondered if Jason would be able to sleep there, in some foreign bed. She wondered if she would sleep herself. It had been so long since she slept alone. She usually didn’t like it, finding it cold and lonely, but she was looking forward to this evening, hoping that without Jason and his disturbances, she would finally get a good night’s rest.

She slipped further down and let her head enter the warm water. Her head floated with her ears just below the surface, the liquid muffling the apartment’s sound.

One could rent a sensory deprivation chamber here in the city, Sam thought. One of those where you just float in water inside a small room. The lack of sound and light, with the feeling of floating, is meant to deprive your mind of stimuli, which does interesting and strange things to it.

People have reported having full hallucinations or communions with nature or God.

Sam wouldn’t mind that here, in her bathtub. To talk to God and ask why it’s so necessary for people to suffer. Samantha floated, mesmerized by the sound of water lapping against her body and the walls of the tub. She lay there until the water became still and another sound broke through. It wasn’t the sound she had hoped for, though. Instead of