It was the middle of the night, the entire house lay silent not a single sound, not a single word, not a single scratch. Everyone was sleeping soundly in their beds.

Then someone woke up in the middle of the night.

“Oh... this could make for an interesting story,” he said to himself “I must write it down on my notepad.”

The notepad was next to his bed, within arms reach.

He looked at it and realize that arms reach is not sleeves reach.

Yet he lay immobile, without being able to sleep or to move. Sleep was luring him. Like a moth attracted by the sun.

It’s worth writing all those ideas? All those half fantasies? All those ‘interesting’ things?

Why not sleep? Why not just let this idea vanish in the ether and continue sleeping, just once, just this time.

He tried to move his arm but couldn’t. The warm of the bed had immobilized him.

If he were to wrote every single half scratch of ideas he would have to write from dawn till dusk. He couldn’t do that. No really, he couldn’t do that.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He had an idea to catch, a fragment of a dream, a distorted fantasy.

Was waking up in the middle of the night worth it? Was breaking his sleep for something so minuscule and tiny worth it? Why he didn’t just keep sleeping like normal people.

The sleeves were warm. The night long. The eyes were tired...

Yet for how much he felt tired he couldn’t sleep.

At dawn, another day would come and those ideas will be no more. Never to reappear. Damn! Why so many good ideas come once and never come again?!?

Tomorrow will be hard, tomorrow will be better, a friend once told him. He had to do so many things, so much work! So many things to catch up.

Yet despite all the time that he dedicated to those things deep down he knew the truth. He didn’t really care about those things.

Writing was one of the few things that made him feel alive, feel in contact with something deeper, feel… human. When he wrote he felt… human. Not a slave or machine going from one mindless distraction to the other but human.

He lay in bed awake for some more time. Meditating on those things.

He had lots of ideas that could be turned into stories.

What would people think of him once he is dead? No, what would he think of himself on his death bed?

“Here I die, I had a peaceful and serene life, did what other people did, married because I felt alone, had a family that I never really wanted and worked a job that I hate for all my life.

I never did anything noteworthy and I will be forgotten in 10 years?”

He was still in time, he was still young, he knew this. Yet the thought of seeing his grave in ruin, seeing all the things which he didn’t, seeing on it “He was a good man, he lived a happy an ordinary life.” Made his blood boil with passion.

He had just to grab that little notepad, make that little push, write half a scratch of note, and then continue sleeping.

In a moment he made the push, grabbed the notepad and wrote, in the dark: “Reofthe chaos music. car. Thing that dance.[1]”

Then he slept happily.

Note from the text:

[1] If you are wondering, yes, that is the note of Double Sharp.