Sundowning

A flash fiction on disorientation.

Friends, if you’re familiar with my work, you’ll know by now that I gravitate toward psychological, visionary, and metaphysical themes. I’ve always been fixated on our relationship with memory, dreams, visions, and hallucinations. For instance, despite Freud’s best efforts—despite the fact that we spend about eight hours a day asleep—the truth is that so little is concrete about how and why humans dream. To me, that only proves how much we still have to uncover about our subconscious minds, let alone our brain—the way it can store archives of our moments on Earth, even invent experiences while in slumber.

In my just-released book, Intrinsic: A Novel (available in ebook and print), the protagonist, Anne Reynes, narrates the story of her youth—one constantly shaped by her subliminal thoughts, especially those about her mother, as she searches for a sense of self. In the forthcoming Books 2 and 3 of The Intrinsic Trilogy, much more will be revealed about Anne’s mental state, but I’ll tell you now that she was inspired by my grandmother, Iluminada.

It was through my lola’s battle with dementia (until she died at age 82) that I became obsessed with memory loss and cognitive impairments. For years, I’ve read extensively about possible causes of such diseases, as well as their symptoms.

One fascinating phenomenon I’ve come across is the sundown syndrome, or that state of restlessness many people with dementia experience during late afternoon and well into the night. Hence the name: “sundown.”

Below is a bite-sized fiction about this.

—France

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Photo by Jacky Watt on Unsplash

“Sundowning”

Confusion is a never-ending whiplash—like a rear-end collision that catches you post-hit, mid-air. Your surroundings fall into a stroboscopic flicker. The evening refuses to settle, yet you feel the lightheadedness of an entire day’s existence. An entire year’s, really. And just as you try to locate the exact spot where you lifted off—never mind that the whole room, now slowly rewinding, still has your body suspended in the sky—your life flashes before you.

Then suddenly, it’s a new day—to you, at least.

“That was some dream,” you mutter. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

And the episode begins all over again.

Confusion.∎

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My book Intrinsic: A Novel is out:

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If you liked this one, I wrote “flashier” fiction pieces here:

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