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The Rub: To sleep — Perchance to Dream

January 3: Day 3 of L.C. Schäfer's A-Story-a-Day for 2024

By Gerard DiLeoPublished 2 years ago 1 min read

January 3 is a day to commemorate the Festival of Sleep

Time for bed: bed time. One ticket for the Mattress Ball.

Thad's satiety has been achieved, his hunger sated, and his day's goings-on were now gone-on and, it seemed, stood complete. As the human animal, Thad lay in state, at peace, hypnogoguic in pleasant reverie, and would fall into the somnolence arising within him.

Thus, the wear-and-tear of his day was repaired, and his body-mind was revived in preparation to welcome — with fresh vim and vigor — the coming day.

Or not. Was it to be or not to be?

It was a daily exercise in dismissal of exercise, and putting behind him the thousand natural shocks his flesh had sustained, he pondered in his reverie the similarities between sleep and death, each a consummation.

To die, to sleep — To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub!

Thad closed his eyes and so ended the day's heartaches. Dismantling his mind served him fulfilment. Actuation deactivated. He had finished the bottle and lay in wait for what dreams may come.

He sneered at doom, chuckled at catastrophe, and laughed in the face of death from which no traveler returns. As such, he shuffled his mortal coil.

And slept with the fishes.

MicrofictionPsychological

About the Creator

Gerard DiLeo

Retired, not tired. Hippocampus, behave!

Make me rich! https://www.amazon.com/Gerard-DiLeo/e/B00JE6LL2W/

My substrack at https://substack.com/@drdileo

[email protected]

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Comments (4)

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  • Test2 years ago

    Outstanding work, Gerard DiLeo!!!

  • I wish I was Thad. Loved your story!

  • With thanks to Mr. Shakespeare and Erasmus Darwin.

  • Rachel Deeming2 years ago

    Hamlet and humour. Nice.

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