Miao Hsiang Outsmarts the Sleep Paralysis Demon
Original (原文) by Yang You Hsiang in UNITAS (聯合文學)
Other than that aborted thesis, what possibly could be weighing on Miao Hsiang?
Miao Hsiang had been forced to quit his graduate program and temporarily move back to his hometown. He waited anxiously for his military exemption papers to arrive and planned, when the dust all settled, to return to Taipei and continue on his path. He had just applied for an advertising job on Ren’Ai street, a main thoroughfare that cuts through Taipei’s most bustling neighborhoods. In order to shorten his commute, he planned to rent a place nearby. He scoured the rental sites and a room that cost 8,500 yuan a month caught his eye. In a city where rents almost never drop below 10,000 yuan, this was a rare find.
The spot was located in an old building somewhere in the second section of ZhongZhen district where Linyi street crosses Ren’Ai street (this is on the border of Da An district). The outside was certainly old. It was pressed up against another old building, the fire lane between them had been illegally built on. There were two entryways, one opened to Ren’Ai street and the other into a quiet alley. The landlord showed him around the building. The lone elevator had a sharp plastic smell and the scent of mildew oozed out of the walls. A dull mossy wetness enveloped the hallways which sported some furniture that must have come from a factory or mechanic shop because they emitted a harsh formaldehyde odor.
The landlord offhandedly said, “There used to be a tire shop just behind the building, and it had a bit of a smell. But it went out of business, went out of business. So there are fewer tires, fewer tires. So the smell is not as bad, right?”
“Right…” Miao Hsiang did not know how to respond to that kind of vacuous sales talk. And perhaps Miao’s brain was flooded with the “aroma” of the 8,500 a month, protecting him from any other stench filling the sky.
The landlord looked to be about fifty years old. He lived on the first floor of the building next door. He said that he sells jade at the JianGuo Jade Market. He said from the first floor you can peep around the flimsy door and see the sculptures, necklaces, and other local art. He wore a dzi bead and a jade necklace around his neck.
The landlord has dealt with countless tenants and knew exactly how to deal with young guys like Miao Hsiang who had just entered society. Miao Hsiang kept wanting to pipe up and ask a question about the building, but he did not know how to go about it and, as if it were a wrestling match, the landlord expertly locked each possible avenue, contorting the conversation in ever flexible ways.
Miao Hsiang had once seen a variety show where artists were invited to bring a treasured jade piece. An appraiser would then, on live TV, judge the value of the item. Often it went that the pieces that appeared most elegant were judged to be cheap fakes while the unassuming ones, or items given as gifts, would make the appraiser drop his tools and say, “Wow! Congrats, the market value is at least three times what you thought it was!” After watching an episode, Miao Hsiang did not understand glossiness, purity, exquisiteness, feel, or any of those technical terms. He could not hold his own against a jade appraiser, not to mention this jade dealer of a landlord standing in front of him.
The landlord guided Miao Hsiang to a room on the fourth floor. It wasn’t small per se, but it was evident that everything was outdated. The desk, which was an old security guard stand, was a dark walnut color spotted with cigarette burns. The bed frame was from the 70s and looked like something that might be in your parents’ room. The wardrobe doors could be ripped off with minimal effort, but the inside was so dank and deep that it would inevitably be a hotbed of roach reproduction. It is unclear how many tenants the mattress has served, and the sheets were the thin sort made of bamboo fibers with lots of sharp threads sticking out, waiting to prick at your hair and stab your sleep every time you turn over.
Miao Hsiang heard some southeast Asian language being spoken by a group of people walking up the stairs. He turned to ask the landlord who preempted him by saying, “Don’t worry. Our building isn’t sketchy at all. They’re all chefs. They came to Taiwan to study how to make soup dumplings. They are very hard working, and if they succeed, they will go back home. It’s alright.” In that moment, Miao Hsiang had a previously unimaginable thought: the skill of folding soup dumplings, the pursuit of the perfect eighteen folds and the disruption of his sleep, of crimping his slumber into eighteen folds, would go hand in hand.
Three months later, in that little room, Miao Hsiang experienced sleep paralysis for the first time in his life.
It was some afternoon on some weekend. In order to save money, Miao Hsiang stayed holed up in his cramped room, pretending that he was asleep. Almost like a dream, a slight sound started to creep up and prickle his ear. He turned to get up, but realized his body couldn’t move, and yet he was becoming even more aware of his surroundings. He was terrified. This fear lasted a long time until he wrested back control over his body.
Miao Hsiang sat up on the bed, his body was soaked in sweat. He was not only scared, but unsettled. Why had this sleep paralysis demon chosen to torture a broke nobody living in a cramped room? In Miao Hsiang’s estimation, there must be plenty of assholes in this city alone more deserving of paralysis.
He let out a sob then decided to lay down a bit and keep sleeping, but not two minutes later, it was as if the voice had been reincarnated inside of his ears and temples. His mind was awake but he could not move at all. This time, he regained control of his body faster, but was worried this was becoming an undesired pattern.
Miao Hsiang had, a long time ago, learned the scientific explanation for sleep paralysis: your brain wakes up before your body which creates a sensation of being crushed.
Miao Hsiang, with his literature degree, was under a lot of pressure to find a job. Whenever someone asked what he studied in college, he would always tell them: literature. He would then quickly blurt out a couple lines he memorized from Su Tungpo to justify his choices and shut the other person up. The more persistent would then ask him what good has memorizing Song Dynasty poetry done him.
So after a while, Miao Hsiang started saying that he studied the humanities (usually reminding the questioner that history and the humanities are inseparable). And since history is a bit more clear cut than literature, he would say, “In 1905, Taipei lit the way, replacing gas lamps with electrical ones.” In response to this stump speech, others who were more prone to a defensive disposition would say, “Look, Miao Hsiang isn’t even from here and he wants to tell us our own history.” Then the next portion of this tired juggling act would be to ask, “And what year did construction on the Taipei metro begin?”
The denouement of this three step dance turned out to be a made up path. Miao Hsiang now says: I studied humanities, ah, well some humanities, some science–his explanations overcame him. It was like the cover of the Little Newton magazine; there were globes, telescopes, beakers, comets, Einstein with his tongue hanging out, all dancing around Miao Hsiang. Whenever someone would question him and doubt that the humanities were really so interlinked with the sciences, he would turn it back on them. Have you been sleeping well? Have you had dreams? If so, what did you dream about? You know, dreams are the deepest layer of our consciousness. Oh, you haven’t read Freud?
And, with this demon in his life, two clear paths lay ahead.
The first path that lay before him was to continue the posturing of a man of the humanities. You could begin to expand your ideas about humanities texts: criticisms of the government, environmental protection issues, the housing question, discussions of gender, or national identity, among others. These could “oppose” topics of rational research–could be used to suppress the fear the demon looks to instill, as well as the despair you feel living in your small, plastic-smelling apartment.
Or you could reckon with the fact that an encounter with sleep paralysis is the most exciting thing that has happened to you in your twenty-some odd years of life. This demon is your golden ticket to escape this life filled with eloquent prattle. You should grab onto this chance, and weave it into every story you tell, so instead of endless chatter of the humanities, something worthwhile leaves your mouth. This might even be your destiny, your way of comforting your downwardly mobile colleague (who are all upset about low salaries) and–could be used to suppress the fear the demon looks to instill, as well as the despair you feel living in your small, plastic-smelling apartment.
Do you get it? Do you get that both paths lead to the same place? So Miao Hsiang chose path #3: become a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.
The third path: he called the landlord up and told him he wanted to move out. To his surprise, the landlord didn’t ask for a reason, just coldly responded, “You haven’t even rented for half a year. I will deduct two months from your deposit.” Miao Hsiang almost fired back that this disgusting apartment had given him sleep paralysis. Go ahead, deduct one month, but Miao Hsiang made it nearly half a year.
But “sleep paralysis” isn’t a good reason for keeping your deposit. So Miao Hsiang just said that the tire smell kept him up at night and couldn’t you be a little flexible? I’m broke. The landlord reluctantly gave in, but in order to turn over the apartment quickly, he would need to bring people in to see the place. Miao Hsiang could only bite his tongue. He wouldn’t be able to take off work to come back and unlock the door, so he would have to leave it unlocked. But there was nothing valuable in his apartment. If someone wanted to take something, go for it, at least then he wouldn’t have to lug it to his next apartment.
Miao Hsiang immediately regretted asking the landlord to move out. He opened a rental site and didn’t see anything less than 12,000 yuan. Everything was in the 13-15,000 yuan range. He scrolled for an hour at his stained walnut desk. He looked over his shoulder at his bed. He didn’t know if the demon would come back, he didn’t know if the humanities would ever do him any good. He didn’t even know if he was the first person to suffer insomnia from sleep paralysis or if it was insomnia causing the sleep paralysis. Whatever the case, moving wasn’t going to fix things. Maybe he was better off sticking it out, hoping for change in his 8,500 a month little room.
Miao Hsiang suddenly spotted a listing under 10,000 yuan. He hovered his mouse over the listing: close to Dongmen Market, near the YongKang metro station, luxurious small room, only 9,000 yuan.
Miao Hsiang excitedly clicked on it. It opened to a picture of the room he was sitting in.
He sat dumfounded. A ridiculous idea popped in his head: Eh, this is the sleep paralysis service fee. An extra five hundred yuan a month just to get trapped by a demon. From here on out at the end of the month, just break the lease, suffer again, and add five hundred yuan. This way everyone will know that Miao Hsiang, the student of “human sciences”, has plenty of money to spend!
Miao Hsiang felt awash in self-relief. That demon that sprung up from his failed thesis, silently slid out of the wall. It figured that Miao Hsiang was beyond saving.