The Horror of the Snorer
Joanne Furio
Word Count 760
Lately, my nights have taken on a surrealistic cast. Lost in my dreams, my consciousness reluctantly tugs me back to being awake. It begins with a beat, a persistent backdrop for the musical variations that lie ahead. Then comes the filigree, like a flute or violin solo, that adds a line of melody, and often, a third, more roughly edged motif, all of which eventually combine, intensifying like Ravel’s “Bolero,” growing louder, more powerful, finally reaching a crescendo until…I can’t take it anymore.
“Roll over,” I nudge my husband with a knee. He is startled, unaware that he has interrupted one of my adventure-filled dreams or the anxious variety I am relieved to end. Come morning he will have no recollection of being awakened, even if, in the semi-coherent darkness, he fleetingly admits that his guttural acrobatics had gone too far, disturbing even his own sleep.
He promises to roll to his side with a delirious, “O.K.,” but often fails to follow through, resulting in another nudge minutes or hours later. At such times I find myself staring dumbly into the dark, feeling very much the victim of some cosmic marital joke that is clearly on me.
It’s not as if I hadn’t been forewarned. My husband shares the physique of his father, whose snoring remains the ne plus ultra in my estimation, despite his 82 years and now fragile frame. In photos taken during his prime, his shoulders are wide and chest broad, apparently to accommodate a set of bellows that has conspired to ruin my mother-in-law’s sleep from middle to old age. I’ve been awakened by their power while lying in a room at the opposite end of their house. When my in-laws make the cross-country trip to visit us, the guest bedroom abuts our bedroom, so the sound reverberates through the closet and wallboard that separates us.
Like his father, my husband has entered middle age as a broad man whose expansive rib cage contains that same powerful organ. I am loath to admit I am sometimes amazed by its repertoire. His “songs” are more like compositions than free-flowing improvisations, with the order and build-up of a classical arrangement. I’ve even considered bringing a tape recorder to bed to capture these rhythms because when I try to repeat them the next morning over breakfast, my husband swears I’m exaggerating to get a laugh from my sons. I have noted up to three types of snores in one of my husband’s songs. Just as fascinating is how my mind tries to cope with the aural information being thrust into my reveries.
Compounding my husband’s snoring is my inability to ignore it. For better or for worse, I’m one of those people who cannot tune out music, whether it’s the tapping of a pencil or a live band. I’m compelled to move, or at least follow along. That’s why I’ve never been able to study with the radio on, but it’s also made me a pretty good dancer. So when I’m sleeping and my subconscious hears the hum, then the hum-chortle, then the hum-chortle-and-snort of my husband’s breathing, it follows the pattern like Mitch Miller’s exhortation to “Follow the bouncing ball!” Similar to waiting for the next drop from a leaky faucet, returning to sleep becomes impossible. I keep following along. The best I can hope for is that I wake to the snoring at five in the morning, rather than three.
When we were living together, my husband-to-be looked like an angel as he slept because he lay on his back, the best position for snoring, though then he didn’t snore. Now I wake up with darker thoughts as I glimpse his serene pose, so oblivious to the torture I’ve endured.
Instead of defending himself, my husband would do well to imitate my father-in-law’s tacit response to my mother-in-law’s years of complaining. Looking slightly bemused, he simply raises his eyebrows, dumps two sugars into his coffee and gives it a good clanging stir.
Despite my contentment in other marital matters, the notion of a future of interrupted sleep is saddening. One day, I’ll have to pick up my blanket and walk bravely into the darkness, stubbing toes on the furniture, in search of a place to lay my weary head. But isn’t this, in a sense, just another one of those great ironies that wickedly reveal themselves in middle age? You spend the first years of your courtship in love with the novelty of sleeping together, and the later years getting as far away from them as possible.
Joanne is a writer of creative nonfiction, an award-winning journalist and a writing teacher. Her work has appeared in Believer, Catapult, Panoply, Juked, Craft Literary and Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, among other publications. At Berkeleyside, the online newspaper for Berkeley, California, she covers the arts and culture and does the books coverage. She has taught at Saint Mary's College of California since receiving her MFA in creative writing there in 2016. This fall, she'll be teaching online through the Writing Institute of Sarah Lawrence College and Poets & Writers.