The Sleep Experiment Page 8

  “I should get dressed,” she mumbled.

  “No,” he said.

  “The neighbors can see us through the windows.”

  He spotted a light switch within an arm’s reach and flipped the nub, plunging them into shadows. He tugged Brook’s towel loose and let it drop to the floor. Naked, she unbuckled his belt and undid the button and zipper of his slacks.

  Kissing tenderly yet passionately, they shuffled through the moon-dappled boathouse to the cluttered bedroom, their bodies entwined in a slow, exotic dance.

  They didn’t make it to dinner.

  ◆◆◆

  Brook lay awake in bed that night, propped up on one elbow, watching Roy Wallis sleep. The windows and curtains were open, allowing a fresh breeze into the bedroom, as well as slices of silvered moonlight that cast Roy’s strong features in a ghostly chiaroscuro effect. His bare chest rose and fell with each slow breath.

  Such a handsome man, she thought, her eyes studying his straight eyebrows and thick-lashed eyes, his defined nose and chiseled cheekbones, his long and full beard. In her mind she pictured him on the cover of one of those trendy men’s magazines wearing a checkered plaid shirt and suspenders with an axe resting on a shoulder.

  The rugged, woodsy intellectual.

  So different than her last boyfriend. Not that George Goldmark wasn’t smart; he was. He was simply bland, both in appearance and personality. Standing at five-foot-ten, he was neither tall nor short. His chestnut hair, graying at the temples, was always parted on the left and brushed to the right and held in place with maximum-hold hairspray. Gray eyeglasses framing often unreadable black eyes, cleanly shaven jaw, dimpled chin. Friendly yet reserved, content to be a wallflower at a party rather than a mingler. Soft-spoken, polite, complimentary—boring.

  Despite this mediocracy, Brook had cared deeply for George. He was affectionate and accommodating to her needs. He didn’t take drugs or smoke cigarettes. He only drank on occasion and didn’t become drunk. He was never physically or verbally abusive. He was, she supposed you could say, safe.

  They had met in a Costco food court of all places. She had finished her grocery shopping and had decided to spoil herself with a berry sundae. It was a Sunday afternoon, the place was busy, and George, carrying a tray loaded with a turkey provolone sandwich, French fries, and a large soft drink, asked if he could share her table. The last thing she wanted to do was eat with a stranger, but she nodded politely. Her plan was to finish her sundae promptly and get up and go, but George didn’t start chatting her up as she’d expected. Instead, he produced a crossword booklet from his pocket, opened it to a half-completed puzzle, and began working away. She relaxed a bit and took out her phone, so she was doing something too.

  “A small tropical fish that is a common pet and can live in brackish water?”

  “Excuse me?” she said, looking up

  He repeated the crossword clue.

  “A goldfish?” she suggested.

  “Only five letters, third letter an L.”

  She was about to tell him she didn’t know when she said, “Molly?”

  “Ah! Thank you.” He scribbled down the answer. “As a vet, you’d think I would have gotten that one.”

  “To be fair, most people simply flush their sick fish down the toilet rather than take them to a vet.”

  “They do, don’t they? But I don’t run a practice. I work at the zoo.”

  “The Oakland Zoo?” she asked.

  “The San Francisco Zoo.”

  “I haven’t been there since I was a child.”

  “It’s a great place to spend a day with the kids. They might even learn a thing or two about the environment and conservation.”

  “I don’t have children,” she said.

  “No?” he said, his eyes going to her denuded ring finger. “I’m sorry. I didn’t notice…”

  “Why be sorry?” She took a final spoonful of her sundae and stood. “Good luck with that,” she said, indicating the crossword puzzle.

  “Uh…I’m George.” He stood also and stuck out his hand. She shook but didn’t offer her name. “Say,” he added, “I’ve never done anything like this before…but if you’d ever like a tour of the zoo, I’d be happy to show you around. It really is a great place to spend a day. Here, take this.” He slid a business card from his wallet and passed it to her. She accepted it and cast the small print an obligatory glance.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She had never intended to take George Goldmark up on his offer. But the next week on one of her days off she came across his business card in a kitchen drawer where she threw all that sort of stuff, and after replaying her conversation with him in her head, she decided it couldn’t hurt to call him.

  He sounded delighted to hear from her and they made plans to meet at the main gates of the San Francisco Zoo at ten o’clock that morning.

  The date was a pleasant change from the typical drink at a bar—there were lions and elephants and giraffes around every corner, after all—and Brook had enjoyed herself enough to accept George’s invitation to dinner later in the week.

  Fast forward three years and she had all but moved into his apartment building on Grand Avenue. She’d gotten to know most of his friends. She’d met his parents on several occasions. They’d adopted a cat from the animal shelter they’d named Leo. And they’d even begun talking about marriage and having children.

  The relationship wasn’t glamorous in any sense of the word. It was comfortable and predictable and, yes, safe, and there was nothing wrong with that.

  Until Brook discovered George Goldmark was a two-faced slime-ball.

  A coworker at Café Emporium, Jenny Stillwater, was a divorcee constantly singing the praises of the matchmaking app Tinder. One morning when she and Brook were on the same shift she said, “I’ve really got to show you something, hon. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong.”

  She wasn’t wrong.

  The man in the Tinder profile Jenny showed her was calling himself George Cohen, but the photograph was definitely that of George Goldmark. According to his bio, he was single, financially secure, and looking for a serious relationship blah blah blah.

  Needless to say, Brook had been devastated, but she didn’t spend long feeling sorry for herself. She took off the rest of her shift, went home, and tossed all of George’s stuff from the boathouse into the marina’s dumpster. She refused to answer his calls, and by the time he stopped by, she’d already gotten the locks changed. He banged on the door, confused and indignant. She ignored him until he went away. He sent her a few messages over the next week, insinuating he knew why she was mad at him without admitting the reason, and insisting they could work it out. She deleted each message without replying, and eventually he stopped sending them.

  That had been last autumn. Brook had gone on a date with a fitness instructor in December, and another date with a construction worker in January, but neither man had been right for her.

  Then Roy Wallis came along.

  To be precise, he didn’t come from anywhere; he had been right under her nose in the café every weekend morning. Always smartly dressed and groomed, he was impossible not to notice. Brook often greeted him with a smile, but she never attempted to make conversation. There was something aloof about him that intimidated her, that made her tiptoe around his table when he was reading his newspaper in order not to disturb him, something that reminded her she was his waitress, his servant, and nothing more.

  Which was why she had been so utterly stunned when he asked her to dinner.

  Brook had mixed feelings about what happened the other day at his apartment. They’d had dinner plans, granted, but she’d never confirmed them, and by showing up at his door unannounced, she’d been intruding on his privacy. On the other hand, had she not done this, she would never have learned about the blonde woman. Roy would still be seeing her behind Brook’s back, and although they’d never agreed to date each other exclusively, this was unacceptable to he
r.

  Brook didn’t play games, and she wasn’t going to let herself get hurt again.

  So what are you doing in bed next to him?

  He’d apologized. He’d said he’d ended it with the blonde.

  And you believed him?

  Yes.

  Roy’s eyes opened, startling her.

  “Not morning, is it?” he asked sleepily.

  She glanced past him to the digital alarm clock on the bedside table. “Only two.”

  “Good,” he said, slipping his arm around her back, pulling her close to him. She rested her cheek on his chest and soon his breathing assumed the deep and regular rhythm of sleep.

  She closed her eyes and tried to sleep too.

  Days 3-5

  Logbook communications by Dr. Roy Wallis, Guru Chandra Rampal, and Penny Park (Exhibit A in People of the State of California v. Dr. Roy Wallis)

  Subject 1 engaged me in conversation for nearly three hours. She’s teaching me Australian slang and seems to enjoy reminiscing about her country. Subject 2 did not participate in the discussions. He divides his time watching TV, lifting weights, and cooking meals. For lunch he used cookbook recipes to prepare charred leeks with anchovy dressing, turnip tartiflette, confit of salmon with drizzled dill sauce, and sticky toffee parsnip pudding for dessert (made me hungry!). While eating, the test subjects discussed their plans when the experiment concluded. Subject 2 expressed interest in moving to Hollywood, where he hoped to land some gigs as a movie extra, or even small roles with speaking lines. Subject 1 encouraged him in this endeavor, though she said nothing of accompanying him.

  -Penny, Wednesday, May 30

  Blood pressure, heart rate, forearm vascular resistance, and muscle sympathetic nerve activity were measured this afternoon at rest and during four stressors (sustained handgrip, maximal forearm ischemia, mental stress, and cold pressor test). Results revealed an increase in the test subjects’ blood pressure and a decrease in their muscle sympathetic nerve activity. Heart rate, forearm vascular resistance, and plasma catecholamines were not significantly altered. These data suggest that while sleep deprivation increases blood pressure, it does not increase heart rate or muscle sympathetic nerve activity and thus, contrary to much literature on the subject, sleep debt likely does not potentiate an increase in cardiovascular failure.

  -R.W., Wednesday, May 30

  For the first two days of the experiment, the test subjects were eating or snacking in three-to-four-hour intervals. Today, for the first time, they went six hours between meals, suggesting a decrease in appetite. Also for the first time, the test subjects demonstrated signs of ataxia (subtle abnormalities in their gait, speech, and eye movement). During a series of exercises assessing their mental acumen, they displayed frustration and irritation at their results, particularly Subject 2, who ended his participation prematurely. Subject 1 remained cooperative. Declines in her abstract thinking, reasoning, and working memory were observed.

  -Guru Chandra Rampal, May 30

  Subjects 1 and 2 butted heads in their first argument today. Subject 1 was reading on her bed while Subject 2 was lifting weights. Subject 1 glanced at Subject 2 in apparent annoyance several times at the noise the gym equipment made when metal struck metal. Eventually she asked him to take a break. He switched to using free weights. This, however, was a short-term solution, as Subject 1 soon became equally annoyed by Subject 2’s heavy breathing and grunts. This time they raised their voices at each other and traded insults. In the aftermath Subject 2 continued lifting weights. Subject 1 slammed her book shut, got off her bed, and paced the perimeter of the room. By my count, she completed sixty-one circuits before settling down to read her book again! At this point, Subject 2 had commenced watching a movie wearing headphones.

  -Penny, Thursday, May 31

  Subject 1 displays normal orientation, but decreased self-care and reaction time. Her mood appears depressive and her posture dysmorphic. Subject 2 also displays decreased self-care and reaction time. His answers to questions have become circumstantial and tangential. He exhibits a lack of interest and insight, and he has begun speaking with apathetic affect. Subjects have become confrontational with one another without reconciliation, guilt, or shame. Episodes of grandiosity, fragmented thinking, and memory impairment have been noted, the latter suggesting that sleep deprivation leads to a loss of connectivity between neurons in the hippocampus.

  -R.W., Thursday, May 31

  The test subjects went seven hours between meals today. Decreases in attention and concentration, as well as severe memory impairment, were observed. Subject 1, for instance, could not remember anything of our conversations from the day before, complaining of feeling as though she had “early Alzheimer’s disease.” Subject 2’s lapses in memory are more severe. Notably, he could no longer perform simple math. During one exercise, in which he was tasked with counting down from one hundred by subtracting seven, he only reached seventy-two, four subtractions, before stopping and becoming upset. When I asked him why he stopped, he said he forgot what he was doing. Both subjects appear to be struggling with muscle coordination and keeping their eyes focused.

  -Guru Chandra Rampal, May 31

  Wow, were they moody today! They barely wanted to talk to me, and when they did, they were slack-faced, irritable, and forgetful, barely able to finish their sentences. Subject 1 continues to read regularly, though now only in small bursts, sometimes for no longer than ten minutes at a time. When not reading, she becomes agitated. On one occasion she paced the room for fourteen minutes without ever looking up from the floor. Later, she sat on the edge of her bed for fifty minutes, unmoving except for her right foot, which she tapped rapidly. Subject 2 spent the majority of the afternoon watching movies. Aside from briefly talking to me, the only other activity he performed was a solo (and lethargic) game of basketball. This is the second consecutive day he has not lifted weights. Both test subjects complained to me of feeling nauseous and have very little appetite. All they seem to be eating is citrus fruit such as tangerines and oranges.

  -Penny, Friday, June 1

  Electroencephalography tests were conducted on the subjects’ pre-frontal cortices, as this region of the brain has a greater restorative need than others and is thus more responsive to sleep deprivation. Both subjects are right-handed and have not consumed nicotine, alcohol, or xanthine-containing beverages (coffee, tea, soft drinks) during the past week. The electrodes were positioned according to the International 10/20 System, and all electrode impedances were kept below five kilowatts. EEG data was collected from twenty monopolar derivations for five minutes with the subjects’ eyes closed, in order to observe the cortex electrical activity without any external stimuli. Visual inspection was employed for the detection and elimination of possible visual artifacts, and two minutes of artifact-free data was successfully extracted from the EEG’s total record. Results indicate that prolonged total sleep deprivation causes a significant power decrease in the frontal, temporal, and occipital areas of the alpha and beta frequency bands. However, temporal delta and temporal-occipital theta T6, O2, and OZ exhibited power increases. Traditionally, increased theta activity correlates with an increased cognitive workload and tiredness. Why it has become more pronounced during the subjects’ period of continuous wakefulness, when task demands have been relatively minor, is unresolved.

  -R.W., Friday, June 1

  Day 6

  Saturday, June 2, 2018

  Sharon Nash was really starting to feel like a guinea pig.

  The first few days of the experiment had been a real slog with a lot of time on her hands and little to do to fill it. She spent countless hours lying down on her bed with her eyes closed, daydreaming. Sometimes she tried falling asleep, but this proved impossible. Her mind simply wouldn’t shut off, and when she opened her eyes, she was always instantly alert.

  Once Sharon got her head around the fact she didn’t need or want sleep, and wasn’t going to get it for the next however-many days, she dev
oted herself to reading. Growing up, she had been a bookish girl. She recalled passing a lot of summers at her family’s holiday house on the Avon River outside Toodyay reading Roald Dahl, R.L. Stine, the complete Nancy Drew series, and even a few Hardy Boys books to boot if there was nothing else interesting on the bookshelf. She continued reading voraciously throughout high school—mostly Danielle Steele and J.D. Robb and other women’s fiction—but this all changed during her first year at Curtin University. Her courses required so much assigned reading that little time remained to fit in recreational stuff. Add partying and dating to the mix, and she probably averaged about one paperback novel a year during her three-year sociology degree. And if she thought she might’ve gotten back on track while backpacking through Europe, she was dead wrong, as most of her spare time was spent meeting other backpackers, visiting famous landmarks, playing drinking games, and bar hopping. The only real downtime she had was during hungover mornings, but the last thing she felt like doing while hungover was reading.

  Sharon had not wanted to participate in the Sleep Experiment. She had been perfectly content working at the Italian eatery. Although she was only being paid about a third of what she would have made an hour in Australia, the tips more than compensated for this shortfall.

  Chad, however, needed cash, and he pressured her into going to the interview with him.

  Admittedly, after hearing what Dr. Wallis had to say about the experiment, Sharon’s reservations largely vanished. It had been approved by UC Berkeley’s Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects, and according to the doc, there were no long-term repercussions to sleep deprivation. Moreover, the pay was admittedly freaking awesome, and if she budgeted wisely, the money would last her until she flew back to Australia in September.

  This last thought both excited and saddened her. She’d been away from home for about a year now, and she missed her parents heaps. She was, she had to admit, a little homesick. She wouldn’t even mind seeing her brat of a brother again, who was currently in his second year at Curtin.