Reader Meet Author

Day Sleeper

I have spent my whole life asleep. Every night I go to bed and sink into dreamless oblivion, but I don’t wake up in the morning. I never wake up. I remain asleep as I drift obediently through my day. I get up and eat my healthy balanced breakfast, and then I go to work. At work I don’t make any ripples and I don’t make any decisions. I don’t cause any fuss. I go. Time passes. I leave. The same cycle has continued for 10 years with little change, and it will continue until I die. I am not afraid to die. Death may be eternal sleep, but it will also be a release from this nothing.

I’m a daysleeper.

Why is my life like this? I eat my 5-a-day. I take vitamin supplements. I take my government recommended amount of exercise. I Live Life To The Max. So why do I always feel so lethargic? I look after myself: I shop at the right shops and only wear the best labels. I cleanse, I moisturise, I exfoliate. Why am I alone? Even when I am with someone, why am I alone? Am I not Worth It?

I did everything that was expected of me. I did well at school; I went to University. I got a degree. I got a job. But then what? Then what? Not everyone can be a hotshot. Not everyone gets to run their own company; to make a million. I started with high hopes, but a decade later and they’ve been beaten out of me. I go to work. Time passes. I leave. My job isn’t interesting. My job isn’t important. It’s just a job. It’s just my job. As long as I turn up on time, work late with no overtime pay and record my hours every week, no one bothers me. There’s no dress code in my office. A few years ago it was announced that we should all wear “business casual”. What you wore to work now made no difference to your productivity and we all stopped wearing ties and started shopping at Gap. As far as I know, this new, relaxed dress code is still in place. Now we all wear ties. Nothing was said, but it didn’t have to be. We are docile. We all conform and in a thousand tiny ways our personalities are repressed and our dreams are crushed.

I had a dream last night. For the first time in a long time, I had a dream. I dreamt I was at work. I dreamt I was in a meeting. I dreamt that I finally woke up. I reached across the table and grabbed the person facing me and pulled their head down hard onto the table. A stunned silence filled the room, but no one moved. I beat this head against the table until it made softer noises. I pulled the head up by the hair and looked into the dulled, bloodied face. It was disgusting. I was disgusting. I looked around the room and saw the other faces around the table. They were stunned and shaking their heads in disbelief, their eyes wide with shock. I wanted to kill them all. I was filled with the urge to take them all and to cut them, to pull their viscera across the table, to nail their tongues to the table… Just Do It. Just Do it.

I woke up.

I’m waking up.

posted by swisslet @ 9:15 PM