Monsters of Somnolence, by Katharine Lennon ​

Plate 43 from "Los Caprichos": The sleep of reason produces monsters, by Francisco Goya (Spain) 1799

Monsters of Somnolence

And so I sleep. The monsters come at night: serpents slip out from silk sheets, piling onto the floor and slithering up the posts of my bed; spiders burst from the webbed corners of my room, scuttling across the weathered wooden floor; owls observe from the oak trees looming outside my window, casting long shadows. In these darker places there is no light: laughter becomes brittle cries, love turns to lust for the lost calm and quiet of the night. 

And so I sleep. Yet my dreams are plagued with spiraling despair, and tortured memories of times long since passed. Things that can never be undone, nor forgotten. Shut eyes merely keep me blind to that which gathers and swells in swirls of darkness around me. My ignorance banishes nothing but my peace. I am suffocating in a prison of my own making. Trapped in a restless, unending trance of ephialtes.

And so I sleep. The snakes wind around my ankles, while spiders spin their spools of silk into my hair and over my mouth. The owls, the wisest of us beasts, have flown away: iron talons loosen on the dry branches, the wood crackling as wide wings unfurl and take flight under the gaze of a pale and crooked moon. A single spotted feather drifts down from the midnight sky to rest on the window’s ledge. The breeze rhythmically taps at the frosted glass, seeking entry. 

And so I sleep. I wince as fangs sink into flesh, and hundreds of tiny clawed feet scratch stinging skin. Suddenly, broken from my trance, I lurch upright into the crescent’s golden embrace. I scoop up the spiders in my hair, and watch them pool and spill over my palms. A flood of tiny obsidian specks scatter into the shadows, shimmering stars illuminating the dark. I wrangle the serpents in my fists and squeeze. Their slimy, slick bodies writhe in my grip, pink tongues thrashing at my knuckles, as they melt into bubbling chartreuse puddles. My now open eyes scan the silence. Fluttering wings whistle away the wind, and the yellow-eyed owl returns to its perch.

Katharine Lennon ​

Katharine Lennon ​ is a writer studying literature, philosophy, and classics. Her work draws on visual art, myth, and personal experience, with attention to symbolism, image, and atmosphere. She is especially drawn to ekphrasis as a space where image and language meet. Inspired equally by the visual and historical context of paintings and sculptures in museums, as well as the cycles of the natural world and social relationships, she writes with attention to what she sees, remembers, and feels.