Stories Told Halfway :: Personal Narrative Sleeping Papers

Stories Told middle(a) When I was sick I slept all day, in the shifting bandage of sun on my bed. I woke up after fourteen hours and I saw that I had taken Sleep into me. And I thought, I fancy wherefore they called Sleep a god, why they gave him a face. If you sleep considerable enough, you let him in. You can feel the way he lifts your limbs and lets them fall once more till they learn to hang, loosely, unless so. You can feel the way his hold push down on the back of your neck, gently, and the lazy halo he brushes over the crown of your head with his fingers. You can understand why immediately he likes Sun, who paints a quiet coat of warmth onto your faded yellowish sheets. You can feel him blink and stretch and curl up light and let Sun paint him golden. And you can also understand why mostly he likes Night, who diminishs more quietly, dressed in cool gowns, tracking her nets and nets of stars to trap him in. You can follow up through his eyes, when you have just woken. Things come into your understanding slowly and you are content to know them only halfway. You do not struggle for meaning. You can see how he blurs shapes into roundness. You can see how he breathes out quiet through you where you go, and you know he is in that location in the sleepy tilt of your head. And the people around you, when you have just woken, will see Sleep smiling in the lazy lines of your walk. This is Nicks ducky dream He was being chased. He was all fear. He ran until he started to run on four legs. He felt the spring and the might and the motion that is a wolf running. It was daytime, morning. He followed a rough raceway that wove through the woods. He ran and it was not strange. He did not even agree to think, I am a wolf. Only he was. The trail sullen cleaner, shafts of new white light urging him on to the east. He was not feeling afraid anymore. He hadnt for a long time. The chase trim back away and he was just running, all motion and speed. He came to a place deep in the forest where the trees were narrow and dense.