The Night My Husband Became a Human Generator

It was 2:13 a.m. I know the time because I watched it happen, the way you watch a pot you already know is going to burn.

The room had been peaceful. The fan was turning. The curtain was minding its business. My husband, Tunde, was flat on his back like a man who had signed a peace treaty with the universe. I was three minutes from sleep, which is the most dangerous place a married person can stand.

Then the sound started

It was not a snore. Snores are human. This was infrastructure. A low engine caught, coughed, and settled into a rhythm I have only heard behind a neighbour's gate when the light has done what the light does. Somewhere between a cement mixer and a generator that has survived three governments, my husband clocked in for the night shift.

I lay still. Movement felt like admitting it. On the next pull of air he added a whistle, a small decorative feature, like a manufacturer who could not leave a good product alone.

"Tunde."

Nothing.

"Tunde, you are constructing something."

He smacked his lips, rolled two degrees, and changed gear. The new gear was deeper. I felt it in the headboard. Some people snore. This man was operating a cement factory. I could hear aggregate.

Diplomacy fails

I tried the usual tools. A hand on his shoulder. A gentle shake. The phrase "my love," which I reserve for emergencies and other people's weddings. He inhaled like a man about to read a manifesto and said, clear as morning, "Five more minutes."

Five more minutes of what? Production?

I turned him onto his side. The generator stalled. I felt the brief, filthy hope of a person who thinks the power has come back. Then his mouth found a new angle and the engine returned, offended that I had touched the controls.

At 2:41 I relocated to the sofa with a wrapper and the torch on my phone. From the parlour I could still hear him. The walls in this flat are a suggestion. I sat there calculating whether marriage counselling covers mechanical faults, and whether any form in this country would let me list him as a household appliance.

Morning, well rested, which is a kind of violence

He found me at 6:10, confused and shiny with sleep.

"Why are you outside?"

"You were snoring."

He frowned, genuinely injured. "I don't snore."

I looked at him for a long time. "Tunde. I heard aggregate. The neighbours think we bought a second generator and we are running it out of spite."

He laughed, because denial is his cardio. "You dream too much."

"I dream in silence. You export noise."

We agreed the way married people agree, which means nothing was fixed and both of us will bring it up in 2029. He will sleep on his side. I will pretend to believe him. The spare wrapper now lives on the sofa like a fire extinguisher. You hope you never need it. You are glad it is there.

Last night he started up again at 1:58. I did not argue. I patted the headboard twice, the way you greet a generator before you pull the rope, and I said, "Good evening. Please keep it down."

He answered with a whistle. I took the wrapper. Somewhere in the dark, production continued.