Tangled Lights

By Beverly Ann Flynn

Anna Day is an insomniac researching sleep issues at the library and is fascinated by a homeless man, James Larrimore, who sleeps in the library every afternoon. After several unsuccessful attempts to talk to him, she decides to tail him at night. Touched by the harsh reality of the homeless man's life, she invites him to live with her and her affable husband, George. As her attraction to James grows, Anna must choose between the safety of her stable marriage, and the unpredictability of a life with James.

Tangled Lights is a romantic fantasy that traverses three lifetimes. A haunting love song from the nineteen forties is somehow tied to the present. A prophetic dream in the present documents an unforgettable truth from the past. Can self-forgiveness lead to a hopeful future?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667822075

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© Beverly Ann Flynn 2021

ISBN: 978-1-66782-206-8

eBook ISBN: 978-1-66782-207-5

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

BOOK ONE

The Guy who sleeps in the Library

Chapter 1

Wake up! I can’t sleep!

Chapter 2

On three, stick out your tongue.

Chapter 3

It sounds like Spring.

Chapter 4

I need a maid.

Chapter 5

Vote Anna Day, Double your Pay.

Chapter 6

Anna goes to Washington.

Chapter 7

Epilogue

BOOK TWO

The Red Duesy

Chapter 1

A Love Story

Chapter 2

Intrigue

Chapter 3

Not his Mother’s Son

Chapter 4

All’s Fair in Love, War and Greed.

Chapter 5

Another Love Story

Chapter 6

War Games

Chapter 7

Requiem

BOOK THREE

The Think Tank

Chapter 1

The War of Impossible Ideas

Chapter 2

A Day in the Life

Chapter 3

That Old Pesky Love Thing

Chapter 4

It’s all in your Mind.

Chapter 5

We all come from the Stars.

Chapter 6

Judgment

Chapter 7

Where we’re going, we don’t need space ships.

BOOK ONE

The Guy who sleeps in the Library

Chapter 1

Wake up! I can’t sleep!

There’s a guy who sleeps in the library every day. Having seen him there three days in a row, I conclude that he is homeless. The employees of the library must be very compassionate because they never bother him. They must know he’s there, but they leave him alone. So he just sleeps. He always occupies the same chair, and he always wears plaid shorts, either blue plaid or pink plaid. He seems to have only the two pair. But he is always clean, at least cleaner than one would expect a homeless person to be, so he must have access to some sort of facility where he can attend to personal hygiene. He always carries a brown satchel that he sets on the floor beside the chair. I know for sure that it contains his keys, a copy of Moby Dick , and a daily newspaper because I have seen him pull them out. He still reads newspapers. I find that funny at first. Then I realize that he probably does not have a cell phone or computer to keep up with world news. The library, though, offers free computer and internet access. I wonder if he knows that. I decide that if I ever get a chance to talk to him, I will ask him about it. It could be a good conversation starter.

He’s a very sound sleeper. Even though he’s in a library, which is supposed to be quiet all the time, there is a constant cavalcade of noise. Babies cry, kids laugh and sometimes run or drop books, and people often forget to turn their cell phones off and so they ring at inopportune moments. And yet, in spite of all of these sporadic noise intrusions, he never wakes up. He never even moves, which I find very fascinating. So I have concluded that not only is he homeless, but he must also be exceedingly tired in order not to be disturbed by the noise, and so it follows that his life outside the library must be extremely stressful or physically taxing.

As I watch him sleep, he seems to be exploring the deepest crannies and crevices of REM sleep. This is also very fascinating to me, because he sleeps in what appears to be a very uncomfortable position, and yet he can still reach that profound level of sleep. He does not appear to need to stretch out his body. Rather, his arms and legs are twisted or contorted into very awkward, painful-looking positions, and yet he sleeps. His body must be very sore when he wakes up.

I am doing research on sleep disorders. I have been struggling with sleep issues for most of my adult life; I wake up off and on during the night and I do not know why. Doctors have told me that my sleeplessness could be caused by what I eat right before going to bed, or maybe what I watch on television right before falling asleep. I have experimented with both of those premises by changing my routine, but neither seemed to be make a difference. So I am doing some online research. My internet service at home is intermittent at the moment, which is why I find myself using the Wi-Fi at the public library, and more importantly, why I find the man sleeping in the chair to be so intriguing.

After a little bit of internet exploration, I learn that sleep is prompted by natural cycles of activity in the brain and consists of two basic states: non-rapid eye movement, or NREM sleep, and REM sleep, or rapid eye movement. Typically, people begin the sleep cycle with a period of NREM sleep followed by a very short period of REM sleep. The period of NREM sleep is made up of three stages, with each stage normally lasting from five to fifteen minutes. In stage one, the eyes are closed, but the person can easily be awakened. If someone has only reached stage one of NREM sleep and they are awakened, they often feel as if they have not been to sleep at all. Then, if the person is lucky, they go on to stage two, the period of light sleep, best described as a period of intermittent peaks and valleys, or positive and negative waves. These waves indicate spontaneous periods of muscle contracting mixed with periods of muscle relaxation. The heart rate slows and the body temperature decreases. Then comes stage three. This stage is known as slow-wave, or delta, sleep. If aroused from sleep during this stage, a person may feel disoriented for a few minutes.

Then comes REM sleep. Usually, REM sleep occurs ninety minutes after you first fall asleep. The first period of REM typically lasts ten minutes, with each recurring REM stage lengthening, and the final one may last up to an hour. In people without sleep disorders, heart rate and respiration speed up and become erratic during REM sleep. During this stage, the eyes move rapidly in different directions. Intense dreaming occurs during REM sleep as a result of heightened brain activity, but paralysis occurs simultaneously in the major voluntary muscle groups. So REM sleep is a contradictory state, that is, one of intense brain activity while at the same time, muscular immobility. A completed cycle of sleep consists of a progression from stages one to three of NREM sleep before REM sleep is attained, then the cycle starts all over again.

I am fascinated by the fact that the guy in the plaid shorts can sleep in the library in the most uncomfortable positions in spite of everything that is going on around him. I am maybe even a bit jealous because some nights I am only able to successfully sleep three or four hours. I am impressed because he can achieve REM sleep in less time than it takes most others. He arrives in the library, sits in the chair, and immediately closes his eyes. He straightaway enters into NREM sleep, and in about fifteen minutes, he is in REM mode. I can tell because his eyes are twitching. Fifteen minutes! That is about a third of the time that it is supposed to require to reach that state. But the fact that he can fall into REM sleep so quickly in spite of the noise and the uncomfortable chair is only the surface level of my interest in him. It is as if some bizarre force over which I have no control is drawing me to him and is requiring that I understand him. I have to know how he became this person with no home and so is forced to sleep in the library. Did he just choose to drop out of society, or did some horrible, dramatic occurrence stimulate this behavior? Did his wife die, driving him into a period of temporary insanity? Did his boss fire him for some indiscretion on the job? Is he a veteran suffering from depression? Did he witness some awful event? Is he hiding from someone? Is he hiding from the police? I need answers. I want to know his story. I want to know what motivates him. I want to know what he does when he is not in the library. I want to know who he is.

I ponder these questions every night as I toss and turn in bed. But those hours of lost sleep have not been in vain because I have used that time to devise a plan. After all, life is nothing without a plan. I decide that I am going to approach this question of the homeless man scientifically. I am going to document his every move. I am going to document every second of every minute of every day of his life at the library for a month. Then I will tabulate and analyze the data and using my astute problem-solving skills and my natural intuitive ability, I will be able to scientifically deduce just exactly who he is and what motivates him. I name my plan Operation Blue Sky because the purpose obviously is to clear away the confusion, to dissipate the dark clouds and expose the clear blue sky. Clarity is what is called for.

I begin Operation Blue Sky, or OBS, on Sunday morning. The Palm Springs Library opens at nine every morning, and so I arrive exactly at opening time and sit in my regular spot, the table opposite the large pink chair in which the subject of my investigation sleeps. I carefully place my notebook on the table, which I will use to record my observations, and then thoughtfully arrange three colored pens, blue for entering times, green for documenting the action, and red for emphasis or for recording occurrences out of the ordinary.

About an hour and ten minutes later, the subject arrives. Today he is wearing the pink plaid shorts. I make a note in my chart, in blue ink, of his arrival time and record his clothing choice in green ink. He goes directly to the pink cushioned chair with the arms, which I note in green ink, and additionally that he sets his satchel down to the right of the chair. He pulls out the newspaper and peruses the front page for about five minutes, then folds it up again and returns it to the satchel. He then positions himself comfortably, leans back, closes his eyes and begins his journey to sleep. I document, in blue ink, the times corresponding to each of these activities.

I carefully observe him to see how much his body is moving. I am not close enough to see his eyes, so I pretend to drop my red pen on the floor, and as I bend down to pick it up, I turn around and look at him. I can observe muscle twitches, which indicates that he is still in NREM sleep, and so I note that at ten fifteen, he has not yet reached REM. However, at ten thirty, I realize that he is in that non-muscular movement state so that he is probably now in REM mode, which I note in green ink after having documented the time in blue. Once again, I am in awe that he can arrive at that state after only fifteen minutes. I am able to document four different REM stages, carefully noted in blue. The fact that he does not budge at one thirty-five when the lady at the table next to me accidentally knocks over a chair is carefully noted in red. He finally wakes up at two thirteen, noted in blue, picks up his satchel, noted in green, and heads out. I gather my pens and notebook and leave about ten minutes later.

That night in bed, I toss and turn for at least an hour before I finally fall asleep. But thirty minutes later, I wake up. My husband George sits up briefly, but only because I kick him.

The plumber is coming to fix the leak, he announces.

He lays back down. He is obviously in the middle of a dream because we do not have a leak that requires a plumber. It is another hour before I am able to finally go back to sleep. I wake up again at three, and then again at five. George is still sleeping soundly. I get up without disturbing him, shower and go downstairs and start the coffee. Then I begin frying bacon, the smell of which usually wakes up George. This morning is no exception. He shows up at the breakfast table about twenty minutes later. I ask George between sips of coffee what he was dreaming about when he mentioned fixing a leak. He says he does not remember, but that he does remember being covered by a swarm of butterflies that lifted him up into a tree, and then the branch broke and he hit the ground. After that, he woke up.

Later that Monday morning, as I watch the homeless man fall asleep so quickly, I am yearning to know his secret. My own body is already showing the signs of sleep deprivation. I am noticing more wrinkles which I attribute to my lack of sleep. I think I look older than my thirty years. I asked George once if it bothered him that I was prematurely aging, but he said no, although I am not sure he was being truthful. George always tries to avoid confrontations, and so I have learned that he is not my go-to person for critical analysis. I once asked George how he is always able to fall asleep so quickly.

Don’t know. I really don’t think about it. I just close my eyes. Simple. Useless advice.

When I get home that evening, I ask George why he thinks the guy in the library can fall asleep so quickly.

He’s just really tired, George tells me.

That’s what I thought at first, but I know now that there is more to it. There has to be more. Life is not that simple. You just do not fall asleep quickly simply because you are really tired. I am always tired, so if it were that simple, I could just lay down and be asleep in ten minutes. No, there has to be something else.

The next day, Tuesday, the homeless man sleeps until three seventeen in the afternoon. When he wakes up, he looks around for a moment as if to reorient himself to his surroundings, gets up, grabs his satchel and then leaves the library, each of these actions duly noted, of course, in the proper colors.

I return on Wednesday morning with my notebook and pens, again arriving at nine, right as they are opening the doors. I sit in my usual place, and wait for the homeless man to arrive. He gets there at nine thirteen and goes through nearly the same ritual as the day before. He sits in the pink chair, places his satchel on the side, but does not take out the newspaper. Instead, he immediately leans back, closes his eyes and drifts into sleep. I note this aberration in red. I ponder what might have caused it. Was he in too much of a hurry to get a newspaper? He wakes up at two forty-three, which I note carefully on my chart. Then, just as he had done the day before, he looks around for a very brief moment, reorients himself, picks up his satchel and leaves.

The homeless man is in my thoughts again that night in bed as I am trying to go to sleep. George is snoring, which he has been doing for several minutes. George has very distinctive snores. There are light snorts, which occur right as he is falling asleep, then there are the long, drawn-out snores which indicate he is in a quiet phase, and then there are the rapid, intense snores, usually indicative of very passionate and colorful dreams. I push him so that he will turn over. He sits up, says something about Russians in red space ships, then lays back down, turns over and continues his dream.

The next day, Thursday, I again arrive at the library promptly at nine, but this time I decide to sit on the other side of the table. I do not want the homeless man to realize that I am watching him. And then something unexpected happens. A boy who looks to be about six or seven, comes into the library and plops down in the pink chair. I am aghast. How is that going to play out? What will the homeless man do? He always sits in that chair. Always. Will he be angry? Or will he just calmly choose another chair? Or will he just leave? He is due to arrive in about seven minutes and his chair is taken. I am beginning to panic. Actually, I am both panicked and excited because his reaction will give me more information about who he is. I have the red pen at the ready to record the events of this most unusual day.

The homeless man arrives. He walks towards the chair, sees that it is taken, then leaves the room and walks down the hall towards the men’s room. I document the events in red. Then I very unobtrusively follow him, staying far enough behind so that he does not notice me. He goes into the men’s room, and I stand next to the ladies’ room door which is opposite the men’s room, positioning myself so that I can see out of the corner of my eye who goes in or out of the men’s room. But then I realize that the library employees will probably notice that I have been standing outside the bathroom door for a long time and they might come up to me and ask if something is wrong. So I reluctantly decide to return to my seat at the table.

The homeless man stays in the bathroom for quite a while. I do not know if he is sleeping or what. I am tempted to go into the men’s room and see, but do not have the courage. So I just sit and wait. Then, thirty minutes later, he finally comes out. He returns to the main room where the pink chair is located. The boy is gone now. The homeless man sits in the chair and is asleep in about three minutes. I note the unusual happenings of the day on the chart with three asterisks and a lot more red ink. The homeless man leaves at the usual time. I wait five minutes, then leave as well.

At dinner that evening, I tell George about the unusual happening with the homeless man and the chair and the seven-year-old interloper. George seems to be interested, so I explain at length how I waited outside the men’s room door for a few minutes but then returned to my seat because I was afraid to go in and see what the homeless man was doing. George says the next time that happens, I should call him and he will gladly perform any necessary bathroom sleuthing.

He was probably sleeping on the toilet seat, George concludes. I mean, really, what else could he be doing in there for thirty minutes? Did he take a magazine or a book with him?

Nope, no book or magazine.

Then he must have been sleeping. George continues eating the last of the peas on his plate. I have to hurry up, he explains, "because there’s another episode of Breaking Bad on tonight."

I leave George to his television, and go into the office to review the comments in my journal. I note, in red, that if the homeless man ever goes into the bathroom again, I will call George right away. When Breaking Bad is over, George sticks his head in the door and says he is going to bed. I join him an hour later. By that time, he is sound asleep. I shake him just out of spite and frustration, and ask him what happened on the television show. He responds that a green skunk is falling into the well and he has to save him before the ship comes. Then he rolls over. I shake him again and ask him what happened on the TV show, but this time he expels one very loud, long snort, smacks his lips and says nothing more. I give up. I sit up for another three hours, wide awake, until I finally doze off.

The next morning, George asks me what it means if everyone in your dream has no arms or legs. His war dreams are starting to return, I say to myself. However, I do not want to acknowledge this out loud, so I tell him it probably means that he does not want to exercise anymore, so he did away with his appendages. No, he tells me, if he wanted to dream about not exercising, he would just dream that he was sitting in a chair watching television. Dream television. Then he bursts out laughing. For some reason, that is amazingly funny to him.

After two weeks of watching the guy in the library and recording my thoughts and his movements, I conclude that I am getting nowhere and need to try a different strategy. Even though I know his habits, I still know nothing about him. It has become very clear that if I am going to discover his secrets, I need to actually talk to him. I need to be able to ask him who he is, how he became homeless, and why, in his condition, he falls asleep so easily. So I decide that I am going to initiate a conversation with him, which will be really difficult since he is always sleeping. I determine that I will simply have to wake him up. I decide that tomorrow, I will try a ruse. Operation Blue Sky is going to be retired and Operation Critical Action will take its place, action being the key word. I will walk near him and accidently drop my books on the floor, and hope that that wakes him up. Then I will casually start up a conversation with him.

I tell my husband about my Operation Critical Action, referred to from now on as OCA, and he says absolutely no, do not bother the homeless man. He is probably mentally ill, George warns, or he might be a criminal. Those are usually the only two reasons people are homeless, he tells me. I choose not to listen to him because I know from experience that there are many reasons why people are homeless. I was once homeless myself, although I have never told my husband about that. But because I was once homeless, I know that there is always a backstory.

So I return to the library on Monday morning, sans notebook and pens, this time waiting until ten to make sure he does not see me. I notice right away that he is in his usual chair, sleeping very soundly, so I pretend to peruse the cooking aisle, grabbing the