Monday, January 14, 2008

Bathroom Monologue: Sleepy Head

While everyone else rummaged through the yardsale, Som napped in the passengers seat. That’s the way it always went when they went out; him waking up would ruin the fun, and he understood it. Som wasn't a fairy or a wizard or one of those mutants in the movies. He was just a circumstance of the world. Whenever he was awake, anyone around him fell like a stone. Not dead, don't worry about that. Just asleep. Being asleep isn’t so bad unless you happen to be driving on the highway, performing surgery, constructing a skyscraper, serving as a 9-1-1 operator-- alright, it could be quite bad. Which was why he stayed out of the way. He only chatted with people over IM’s and cell phones, but even that left them feeling drowsy. It might have been his personality. He only roamed the streets late at night, with bed hair and crinkled pajamas. According to one note he left on the fridge, you ceased to care about your appearance when all the better-dressed people around you fell to the ground the second you so much as got in their peripheral vision. He’d stuck with this group of friends for two years now, and every morning they’d wake up to find him dozing in front of the TV. Back before they met Som two of them had been insomniacs, and the curmudgeon among them had been narcoleptic. Now everybody went to bed at the same time, and the curmudgeon hadn’t had so much as a long blink in – well, two years. They took a shine to Som, and the best part was that, according to all the notes he left on the refrigerator and the pleasant, subdued smile he always had while napping, he really enjoyed their company, in his own way.

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