The Echo Man

Chapter 7

He awoke, dreambound, still in the hypnotic thrall of troubled sleep. This morning, in his final reverie, as the light of day filtered through the blinds, Kevin Byrne stood in the defendant's well of a cavernous courtroom that was lit by a sea of votive candles. He could not see the members of the jury but he knew who they were. They were the silent victims. And there were more than twelve. There were thousands, each holding one light.

Byrne got out of bed, staggered to the kitchen, splashed cold water on his face. He'd gotten four hours of sleep; three the night before. Over the past few months his insomnia had become acute, a routine part of his life so ingrained that he could not imagine living any other way. Nevertheless, he had an appointment – doctor's orders and against his will – with a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania Sleep Clinic.

He took a long hot shower, rinsing off the previous night. He toweled, dressed, pulling a fresh shirt out of the dry-cleaning bag. He put on a new suit, his favorite tie, then sat at his small dinette table, sipped his coffee. He glanced at the Sleep Clinic questionnaire. All one hundred sixty probing questions.

Question 87: Do you snore?

If I could get someone to sleep with me, I might be able to answer that, he thought.

Then Byrne remembered his little experiment. The night before, at around two a.m., when he'd found that he couldn't drift off, he'd dug out his small Sony digital recorder.

He got back in bed, took two Ambien, turned on the recorder, flipped off the light, and closed his eyes. Four hours later he awoke.

And now he had the results of his experiment. He poured more coffee, played the recording from the beginning. At first he heard some rustling, the settling of the unit on the nightstand. Then he heard himself turn off the lamp, a little more rustling, then a bump of the table, which was so loud that it made him jump. He turned down the volume. Then, for the next five minutes or so, he heard nothing but white noise, the occasional car passing by his apartment.

Byrne listened to this rhythmic breathing awhile, which seemed to get slower and slower. Then he heard the first snort. It sounded like a backfire. Or maybe a pissed-off Rottweiler.

Great, he thought. So he did snore. Not constantly, but about fifteen minutes into the recording he began to snore again, loudly for a few minutes, then not at all, then loudly again. He stared at the recorder, thinking:

What the fuck am I doing?

The answer? Sitting in his small dining room, barely awake, listening to a recording of himself sleeping. Did it get dumber than this?

Man, he had to get a life.

He pressed the fast-forward button, and every time he came across a sound he stopped, rewound for a few seconds, played it back.

Byrne was just about to give up on the experiment when he heard something that sounded different. He hit Stop, then Play.

'You know? came his voice from the recorder.

What?

Rewind.

'You know.'

He let it run. Soon there was another noise, the sound of the lamp clicking on, and his voice saying, clear as a bell:

'2:52.'

Then there was the snap of the lamp being turned off, more rustling, then silence for the rest of the recording. Although he had no memory of it, he must have awakened, turned on the light, looked at the clock, spoken the time aloud, and gone back to sleep.

Except there was no clock in his bedroom. And his watch and cellphone were always on the dresser.

So how did he know what time it was?

Byrne played it all back, one last time, just to be certain that he was not imagining all of it. He was not.