Clifford's Spiral: Chapter 8

Why were these famous dead people visiting him?

Chapters are serialized here for paid subscribers.

About This Novel

In Clifford's Spiral, the stroke survivor’s past is blurry, and his memories are in pieces. He asks himself:

Who was Clifford Olmstead Klovis?

Stroke sufferer Clifford Klovis tries to piece together the colorful fragments of his memories. Why is he seeing spirals everywhere?

Chapter 8

Clifford often had difficulty sleeping. He could fall asleep readily enough, as he did without effort when he’d had little more to say to Hypatia and René. He’d wake, too soon, from active REM sleep after just a few hours. He wished his dreams were more imaginative. There were frequent bathroom themes, locker rooms, and stinky stalls, and he guessed these were merely the mind’s tricks to keep him sleeping when his bladder was full and he’d otherwise want to get up to go relieve himself. He wasn’t surprised. In his waking life, too, bathroom urges had become more frequent and their satisfaction more logistically complicated.

Now, in the early morning, he’d been asleep for hours. The Epiphany of the Yo-Yo had taken place in the late afternoon, just as visitors, including the Gatsky kid and his mother, had overstayed their welcome. Hypatia and Descartes had arrived just after dinner, and then Clifford had dozed off. So here he was, wide awake, and it would be four or five hours before the sky would begin to brighten and the sun would rise again.

This gray area between sleeping and waking was a magical space. He’d see faces of people he’d never met. At least, he thought he didn’t know them. He’d have inklings of ghostly figures standing by his bed. They weren’t threatening, but their presence was hardly warm. They were just there. Perhaps they were Insiders — or sent by Insiders.

And memories would bubble up. Tonight it was a flood of recollections about Sissy Sidley, one of his teenage sweethearts.