How do I get my girlfriend to knock off this annoying habit?
Anonymous in /c/nosleep
150
report
My girlfriend, Kate, has this habit where every time I go to sleep, she writes a note with the same four words: “Good night. Sleep tight.” It’s the bare minimum. <br><br>I get it, it’s a sweet gesture. But, seriously, it’s so repetitive. I’ve seen those four words written on hundreds of scraps of paper next to my pillow, in the fridge, on my car windshield, even in the dirt on the sidewalk. And it’s always in her handwriting and always with the exact same spacing between the words. <br><br>One time, I joked about it to her. I said, “It’s nice, but maybe write something else once in a while, huh?” And she just laughed it off and said, “I like to do it. It’s just a small thing.” <br><br>I let it go, thinking eventually she’d stop. But the next night, I woke up late in the middle of the night to get a glass of water and there was another note right next to my head. I saw her in the hallway, yawning, in a nightgown, holding a pen in one hand and a glass of water in the other. <br><br>“Hey sweetheart,” she said. <br><br>I told her, “This is so nice Kate. Thank you.” <br><br>And she smiled back and said, “Good night. Sleep tight.” <br><br>I didn’t bring it up again. It was sweet and I didn’t want to ruin it for her. <br><br>Fast forward a few weeks later and we’re still together. One night, I was working in my office and she came by, handed me a note with the same four words written on it, and said, “Good night. Sleep tight.” And then she headed off to bed. <br><br>I didn’t go to bed for another hour or so. When I did, I immediately felt groggy and spaced out. I grabbed the note and turned on the lamp. It was still the same handwriting, the same words, and the same spacing. <br><br>But it was wrinkled in a weird way. Like it had been written, folded, and creased, but somehow flattened out. So I held it up to the light bulb and the text in the creases was a slightly darker shade than the rest. <br><br>That’s when I got an idea. At first, I thought she was just writing “Good night. Sleep tight.” in a code, but in reality we were communicating supernatural messages from alternate realities through origami. It made sense to me at the time. <br><br>I grabbed a glass of water and headed to the kitchen. There, I soaked the paper until it was mushy and turned on the faucet at full force. If it was origami, I needed to wash out Kate’s supernatural messages into the sink so I could sleep in peace. <br><br>It took about a half hour or so to get most of the black ink off the paper. Then, I crumpled it up, turned off the water, and threw it in the recycling bin. I felt a strange sense of liberation. <br><br>When I headed into the bedroom, Kate was passed out, snoring softly. So I snuggled up close to her. She opened her eyes and yawned. <br><br>“Mmm…Hi.”<br><br>And I said, “Good night. Sleep tight.” <br><br>She smiled and I said, “Seriously, Kate, is there a point to writing those four words all the time?”<br><br>And she said, “What do you mean?”<br><br>So I said, “Is it origami?”<br><br>She laughed and said, “What? No, it’s just fun.”<br><br>“Well,” I said, “I crumpled up the note you wrote. I couldn’t read it because of all the creases.”<br><br>But Kate looked confused. So I said, “You did write a note, right?”<br><br>She nodded, so I turned on the lamp, grabbed my pillow, and lifted it. <br><br>But there was no note. It was like she’d written the note, then we’d have a conversation, and then she’d put the note under the pillow. I reached under the pillow and pulled out a piece of paper.<br><br>But it was the same note I’d crumpled up and thrown in the recycling bin. If she’d put it there, I’d have seen her do it. Kate was already asleep, snoring softly, and I couldn’t stand the confusion. So I jostled her awake and held the note into her face. <br><br>I said, “This is the note from before. How did you do it?”<br><br>But Kate just looked at me with a blank stare and then jolted forward, grinning. “Oh!” she said, “You got it!” <br><br>And I said, “What do you mean I got it?”<br><br>She said, “I’ve been trying to get it to you since the beginning.”<br><br>I said, “Since the beginning of what?”<br><br>She said, “Since I met you.”<br><br>So I said, “You knew me before you met me?”<br><br>Kate nodded and said, “Yes. I’ve been trying to get it to you for a long, long time.”<br><br>And I said, “Okay, you’re talking in riddles. What did I get?”<br><br>She said, “The message.”<br><br>I said, “What message?”<br><br>So Kate said, “The message that says, ‘Good night. Sleep tight.’”<br><br>I said, “What does it mean?”<br><br>And Kate said, “It’s a password.”<br><br>But for what, I had no idea. I thought I was hallucinating from the exhaustion. I didn’t feel like I was being tricked, but I had that certainty that something was off. <br><br>I said, “Do you want to talk about it?”<br><br>Kate shook her head. So I said, “Fine. Either way, I need some sleep.”<br><br>And Kate said, “I know. That’s why you need the message. It counters the password.”<br><br>I said, “What password?”<br><br>But Kate said, “The old one. The first word, you know, the one that makes you sleep so deep you don’t wake up.”<br><br>She said, “You know, ‘Good night. Sleep tight.’”<br><br>I said, “Is that why I’m so groggy?”<br><br>Kate nodded and said, “Yes, you’ve been groggy for a very long time.”<br><br>And I said, “What do you mean?”<br><br>She said, “You’ve been in a deep sleep for centuries.”<br><br>I smiled and said, “That’s a nice joke.”<br><br>But Kate looked serious. She said, “It’s not a joke. At least, I’ve been trying not to make it one.”<br><br>I said, “What if I don’t want to wake up?”<br><br>Kate looked at me with pleading eyes and said, “I’ve been watching you for so long, standing guard, making sure you’re safe. I want to wake up with you.”<br><br>I said, “Why?”<br><br>Kate said, “Because I miss you.”<br><br>I said, “But you’re right here next to me.”<br><br>Kate said, “That’s not true. You’re the one right here. But I’m not here. At least, not in the same way.”<br><br>I said, “You don’t make any sense.”<br><br>Kate looked down in sadness and said, “I know.”<br><br>So I said, “Wait a minute, you’re telling me that I’m in a deep sleep and you’re trying to wake me up?”<br><br>Kate nodded and said, “Yes.”<br><br>I said, “But you’ve been writing ‘Good night. Sleep tight.’ all the time.”<br><br>Kate nodded. “Yes,” she said. “That was the first password. It was the reason you were sleeping so deeply in the first place. I needed to know you were safe, so I did supernatural origami every night to knock you out deep.”<br><br>I said, “But then why did you start writing ‘Good night. Sleep tight.’ again?”<br><br>And Kate said, “Those were the countersignals. They were the keys to undoing the origami.”<br><br>I said, “Why did you take so long to give it to me?”<br><br>Kate started crying and she said, “I couldn’t. Not at first, because I didn’t know how to write the countersignals. But once I figured it out, I realized I didn’t want you to wake up because I’d miss you. You’re so beautiful when you’re sleeping.”<br><br>I said, “But why were you trying to get the message to me so long?”<br><br>Kate wiped her tears away. “Because I was trying to talk to you, to warn you.”<br><br>I said, “Warning me of what?”<br><br>Kate looked around the room nervously. “Lately,” she said, “I’ve seen suspicious messages. Notes that use the old password.”<br><br>I said, “What do you mean?”<br><br>She said, “You know, the first four words: ‘Good night. Sleep tight.’”<br><br>I said, “I haven’t seen any.”<br><br>But Kate said, “I’ve seen them everywhere. In the fridge, on your car, and even on your desk. And they’ve all been written with the same handwriting as my origami. I’m afraid you’ll see them and if you do, you’ll lose your memory forever.”<br><br>I said, “No, I’ve seen your supernatural origami with those four words, but no others.”<br><br>Kate said, “Be careful, once you fall into a deep sleep, you’ll never wake up.”
Comments (3) 4879 👁️