It won't. He tries to, to wind it down. To make it stop -- or at least to make it recite the ten effective vacuuming patterns -- but all he gets is something he doesn't want to do anymore.
Comparisons. Eye-color, hair-color, style, favorite music, favorite movies, favorite things to do... They're bouncing around inside of him, hitting every nerve and screwing around with his previously impenetrable thoughts. Trudy liked Italian food, Sharona likes Chinese. Trudy adored those pictures of babies dressed like flowers and... and little animals, Sharona likes those pictures where paint is splattered everywhere -- but that's mostly just to bug him.
She has one in her bedroom, she says. ("Just a print," she told him, "but there's black and blue and gray swirled around and mixed together..." She grinned at him, knowing that his skin was crawling. "I love it.")
He shudders.
Trudy hated to see him uncomfortable. It made her sad, she said, to see him wriggling and writhing. Sharona seems to find it amusing sometimes, although... when it gets really bad, she's always right there for him. Hand on his shoulder, talking him through everything.
He sits up, carefully folding the blanket and sheets until the edges reach the bottom of the mattress. His hands find all the wrinkles and within seconds they're no longer existant.
Beslippered feet pad gently down the hallway and into the living room and he finds the lights -- his eyes squinting into the bookcase in an attempt to distract himself from them. He grabs one from the very middle, counting and re-counting to make sure it's not uneven, then sits in his chair. Flips to the very middle, where a tasteful blue bookmark holds his place.
Blue... he thinks, Sharona likes blue.
He shuts the book, completely bewildered. Why? Why, he wonders, is this happening? Sharona is not... She's not something that should be distrupting his sleep. Her differences with Trudy should not be disrupting his sleep. In fact, he should be in bed right now thinking of dusting instead of them. Dusting and scrubbing and disinfecting.
But his mind... it won't let him stop.
He walks over to the phone and punches in a familiar number, waits as the ringing echoes itself.
Finally, a gruff and unsettled voice replies: "...Monk, why the hell are you calling my house at two in the morning?"
"Hi... Hi," he says, "Um... I just kinda needed someone to talk to."
Leland Stottlemeyer does not seem to think this is a very good reason. "Then call Sharona!"
"I can't."
"Why not?"
This is awkward... "Because it's -- it's about Sharona."
"...What?" He sounds shocked. And vaguely suspicious.
"A -- and Trudy," he quickly amends. "It's about Sharona and Trudy."
There's a pause on the other end, and for a second he thinks that he's been deserted. But, a second later, the Captain swears at him and tells him to hold on while he goes into the kitchen.
"So, what about them?" he asks in annoyance once he's sufficiently removed himself from the bedroom area.
What about them? Everything! They're... they're different and perplexing and he can't get either of them out of his head. They're both stuck there, probably forever, and he'll never be able to do or say anything rational again.
"Er..." he says. "Sharona and Trudy... Trudy and Sharona..."
"You say it like they're just one big word," Stottlemeyer chuckles. "Sharona-and-Trudy... They're two different people, you know."
They are.
He clears his throat. "I... I can't stop comparing them," he says. "It's stupid... but I can't sleep. I can't think. I can't focus -- not even on the case! This is like Hell for me, but without sticky things and... and dirt."
A sigh flows through the phone line.
"Dammit, Monk," the Captain says.
"What? What -- What's wrong?" He's panicking. He doesn't like panicking. Sharona needs to be here if his breathing starts to get irregular and... and --
"You're not going to like this,"
Breathe. "Oh, God,"
"Calm down, you're not dying." he laughs.
"Oh, God!"
Stottlemeyer grunts. "Shut up."
He shuts up, still trying to control his oxygen/carbon dioxide balance.
"Anyway," he sounds a bit more relaxed now, as though he's not so angry about being woken up. "How often have you been comparing them lately?"
How often? Once, twice... Thirty-seven times?
"A lot," he replies.
The Captain sighs again and falls back into silence. There's something in the background, the sound of TV. He doesn't watch TV, really, so he doesn't know what show it is... But there's shooting noises and things.
He's beginning to get impatient. "Well..."
"Let me ask you a question," he replies. "Why are you doing this to yourself?"
What? He would stop this if he could!
"I... don't... know,"
"Think about it,"
He hangs up, just like that, and for a second he's left to the sound of nothing. Think about it? He doesn't know what the situation is, what it's doing to him. Fried nerves, inability to... to focus, Sharona and her eyes -- he shouldn't be thinking of her. She's not... She's just Sharona. He's known her forever, she's his friend, but he shouldn't be thinking of her.
He wanders back to his bedroom, climbs into bed, pulls the covers up and straightens the wrinkles. Trudy and Sharona. Sharona and Trudy...
They're two different people, you know, he tells himself.