When I was Eighteen, I lived with my family in Columbia.
We lived in a small town on the outskirts of MedellΓn.
My brother Rolando and I shared a bedroom.
A brother and sister sharing a room was common at the time. Everyone in my town was poor. And in poverty, everyone shared everything. If anything my family was well off, in that the parents and the kids had separate rooms.
Rolando and I would share this tiny room. We each had our own tiny beds. My bed was on the left and I always rolled over on my left side sleeping, and Rolando's bed was on the right and he always rolled onto his right side.
Such that, out of comfort, we always faced one another as we fell asleep.
Rolando always slept in just a pair of shorts.
The heat of Columbia was always repressive.
I usually just slept in shorts and an oversized cotton tee.
When my brother was 19 he started having bad sleep paralysis.
Every morning at about 5 or 6, he would awake and be unable to move, so he told the family:
"It feels like I am being watched, like the Grim Reaper himself is standing over me, and if I move a muscle he will cut me down with his Scythe,"
Rolando explained to the family.
No one but me took Rolando's fear seriously.
I started waking up early in the morning to observe Rolando and his sleep paralysis.
I looked over at his bed and could not see any discernible difference from normal sleep.
Rolando was on his back, breathing heavily, asleep.
Or at least that's how he looked to me.
Rolando later told me that day that he was in a state of unbearable paralysis, unable to move a muscle, and tormented by the fear of somehow accidentally moving.
The next night I observed Rolando again.
And again he was one his back, breathing heavily, asleep-- from what I could tell.
The only difference is that his blanket had fallen on the floor.
I noticed that Rolando was completely erect through his white bed shorts.
I couldn't help but notice, his shorts were comically tented up, straight in the air.
Like a native teepee.
It was funny, but I knew my Brother was stricken with fear.
I went over to Rolando's bed and laid next to him on his bed.