The Elements of a Crime

One night I sleepwalked into my parents’ room while they were lying in bed watching TV. “Here,” I squeaked in my 9-year-old voice, “take the knife. I killed him.” Then I sleepwalked back across the hall to my own bed. The next morning my mother was laughing and smiling when she told me during breakfast what I had done, but I felt – I don’t know – discredited. I had never sleepwalked before. The fact that I could act without being aware of it badly spooked me. It still does. Every night the sky is seething with headless birds in zigzag flight.