How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

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On the night when George and Irene were born, the sun set in a boil of red-orange ribbons across the Ohio sky. The people of Toledo looked out their western-facing windows at the night, buttoned the collars of their pajamas against the cold, and closed the blinds as darkness fell. They lay down flat in their beds and began to sleep. Some turned over on their sides, first some punched their pillows, and some sighed. But sleep came for them all, one by one, and they slid under it willingly. No one fought. No one refused. Sleeping, they lost track of what was going on. They were no longer in Toledo, but in Paris or in the past, on the moon or in a book they’d read. Behind closed eyes and sleeping faces, they were gone.

Into what deep well did they all fall, single file? On what small ledge did each waver, and then drop down from waking into dreaming, down from life to death? A man who falls asleep is like a diver who slips from the air into the water. Yet through it all, the sleeping man’s body stays put, under a thin sheet, straight and flat. You could put his whole body in a box. You could put the box into the ground.

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