Without Air

I awoke in the middle of the night, gasping for air. I was sweaty and anxious, and my heart was pounding hard. I instantly tried to calm myself down. In the dark I could hear the soothing rhythm of my wife breathing next to me. Soon I was calm but still awake. I desperately needed rest and sleep. Opening one eye, I could see the alarm clock. It was 1:00 am. I earnestly hoped that I would not lie here for hours sleeplessly. One of these nights I would probably die from a stroke or heart attack. They would say, "at least he died in his sleep." They would never know that a nightmare had killed me. For years I had had dreams about various forms of suffocation.