The Human Condition

Who exactly is this officious stranger taken
to bustling about in my bedroom as though my
personal agency has been lifted and she has
been authorized to act on my behalf, tersely
barking instructions I am to be compliant
with. My husband, sleeping soundly, knows
nothing though he lies beside me as though
complacent and unaware while I am all too
aware, confused and vulnerably victimized,
enfeebled. Who is she and how is it that she
feels entitled to disrupt my well-being under
the guise of empathetic concern, someone I
have never before seen? She is indifferent
and hostile, reproachful and distant, no one
I would ever under any circumstances wish
to be in close confines with, much less be
agreeable to her presence in my bedroom.
Who is responsible for this affront to my
dignity much less my privacy and why does
my husband fail to react? The questions are
many and the response self-revealing as I
awaken and the offender disappears. I reach
over to my husband for reassurance in the
realization that my sleeping imagination is
responsible for conjuring up this nightmare to
which there is no immediately obvious solution.