Page 72 of Perfect Happiness
“I didn’t turn left once?”
A suspicious look appeared on the doctor’s face.It looked like he wanted to know why Eun-ho was so hung up on not turning left.Eun-ho gave the doctor a plausible reason for his curiosity.
“I sleep with my baby, and I’m always nervous that I might smother him.Do you think I should put him on my left when I sleep?
Aha...The doctor nodded.
“If he’s a newborn, yes, I would suggest putting him on your left.And leave a bit of room between yourself and him.Although, there are no guarantees in life.Have you thought about a crib?”
“He’s not a newborn, he’s five.But he’s frail.”
This made the doctor laugh.It was obvious that he thought Eun-ho was being ridiculous.
“Five?Then you have nothing to worry about.A better solution might be getting him his own bed.”
Eun-ho thought of the first time he slept with Wife.It was about a month after returning from Russia.The morning after, Wife was furious.She asked why he slept with his back turned to her.She said she felt like he had cut her off, like she had been abandoned.She said she even felt insulted.After that, Eun-ho tried to hold her while they slept.But it didn’t help.Every morning when he woke up, he was always sleeping with his back to her.
Now he knew why.He had a preferential direction when turning in his sleep.If Wife had ever slept on his right, they would have woken up facing each other or in each other’s arms.Somewhat absurdly, they had never tried switching sides.It seemed they hadn’t given it much thought.
Eun-ho’s thoughts trailed off as he began thinking about the message Wife had shown the police.There was a good chance the message was a lie.Eun-ho trusted science more than he trusted people.
But why?Why would she send him that text message?It was as though she knew she would need it in a few months.Seeing the way his thoughts were getting out of control, Eun-ho suppressed his curiosity.Right now, he had more pressing questions.Questions he had paid money to get answered.
“I took the sleeping pill you gave me last night.Is it possible to be lucid after taking a sleeping pill?I felt like someone came into the exam room late last night.It felt like they were touching my fingers.I thought it might just be a dream, but I wasn’t sure.”
“Ah, yes.It was probably the nurse.The nurse usually goes into the room early in the morning to check on the patient.What we gave you was Zolpidem, which doesn’t have the sedation effects of benzodiazepines.You might be lucid without being completely awake or aware of what’s happening.Sometimes people will interpret things as dreams.”
Eun-ho could feel his pulse quickening.He had to make sure he heard the doctor correctly.
“You mean I might mistake things that really happened to me as elements of a dream?”
“Yes.”
“And, if I took more than one pill, could I still react to external stimuli?Like a light or something?”
“Well, it would depend on the exact drug and how much you took.Even if you take one or two more pills of the drug we gave you yesterday, you would probably still be able to sense an external light or something.Of course, your senses as a whole would be somewhat dull.Everything would be hazy and dreamlike.”
“And if I took the same test on a different day, without sleeping aids, could the test results be completely different?”
The doctor shook his head without hesitation.
“They would be more or less the same.”
Eun-ho returned home.He took out his cellphone, which he had stashed away in his bag.He had ten missed phone calls and eight unread messages.They were all from Wife.She had sent them throughout the night and into the morning.Eun-ho read her last message.
—Why aren’t you picking up?It’s so frustrating.Where are you?Are you still at the hospital?
Eun-ho was getting a strong sense of déjà vu.These messages were exactly like the ones Eun-ho sent when Wife disappeared.Eun-ho now knew the emotional superiority that Wife must feel all the time.He felt like she was a keyboard that he could play on to his heart’s content, a dog on a leash that he could screw with.
He didn’t send a reply; if he did, she would call him immediately and demand explanations for everything.Eun-ho wasn’t in the mood for such a phone call.He needed time to himself with no distractions.He needed to think about what the results of his sleep study meant, why his wife sent him that untruthful text message, and how he was going to interpret that lie about his sleeping habits.
Eun-ho switched his phone to silent and went into the study.He sat at the desk and laid out the test results in front of him.He caught all the thoughts that were scattered about his mind like fallen leaves and wrote them down on a notepad.
Sleep study—Zolpidem, 10 mg
Only turn right while sleeping—Wife’s contradictory text message.
Noah slept on the left.
