The man stood in the shower for ten whole minutes before realizing he was still wearing his socks.

He looked down blearily at them, sodden and black. Water rained down on his head.

He could hear his housemate hammering on the door. ‘Hurry up, I’ve gotta go to work.’

Work, the man thought. Is that where I’m meant to be?

He sluggishly reached up, clutching at the slippery shower gel bottle. The minty liquid tingled his skin, desperately attempting to bring his body back to life.

It failed.

The man sunk to the bottom of the shower, water hissing over him. The hammering on the locked door got louder and louder.

He shut his eyes. Dampness clung to him. He felt mushroomesque, his body wrinkled, his senses pushing through dank earth.

The man stared at his black, wet socks. Despite the fact they were completely black, it occurred to him they didn’t match. He didn’t know how he knew that. He just did.

Outside, the bathroom door knocking grew to wood-breaking proportions. ‘If you’re not out of there in the next thirty seconds—’

The man leaned his head against the shower wall and fell asleep.

He woke almost instantly, or what felt like almost instantly. The hammering had stopped. The water was still running, but ice cold. He shivered.

In a daze, the man pushed the shower door open and crawled out. His hands buried into the wet bathmat, the fibres curling around his fingers. A little trail of drool came out his mouth and he tried to wipe it away.

Must… sleep.

He didn’t know when the sleep had stopped. Night after night, staring at the ceiling. He knew every crack in it. Every mark. Every cobweb and spider.

The sleep hunger forced him to his feet. A ravenous lust to close his eyes and remain unconscious for at least 24 hours.

Count sheep, meditate, melatonin, no screens, no caffeine, don’t stay in bed for more than twenty minutes, book before bed, no sugar, no stress.

He tried them all. No luck. No nothing.

He’d been referred for a sleep study, but the waiting list was as endless as his nights. His sleepless, sleepless nights.

He caught sight of himself in the mirror. A tiny, bitter sound came out, that might have been laughter.

You know what you look like. You like a—

He tried to say it. But the sound that came out was

‘Gahhhhrrghhhh.’

Someone banged about outside. The man slowly turned towards the sound, the hunger deepening.

Must… sleep.

He opened the bathroom door. His suited and booted housemate stood outside, arms folded, face unshaven, and expression highly irritated.

‘Finally. You took your—?’ He stopped, as if suddenly processing what he was looking at. ‘Jesus Christ, mate! Put some bloody clothes on!’

The sleepless man stared down at his naked body, barely comprehending. He tried to speak but could only make a gurgling noise.

With a resigned sigh, the housemate grabbed a towel from the airing cupboard and threw it at the man. It landed on the floor.

‘God,’ said the housemate, voice softening. ‘You really aren’t well, are you?’

The housemate picked up the towel and gently wrapped it round the man. The man felt drier and warmer, but these facts made little difference to him. All he knew was his own exhaustion.

As if sensing these thoughts, the housemate gave him a reassuring smile. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s put you into bed.’

And maybe it was the word “bed”, or the kindness in his housemate’s voice, or the sleep-deprived degradation of his own brain. But when the man looked into the housemate’s face, he didn’t see a 20-something sales executive in need of a shave. He saw something else. Refreshment. Alertness. The face of man who gets seven-to-eight hours every single night.

Surely he didn’t need it all?

The man reached a hand towards the source of his craving. The housemate flinched away.

‘Woah, mate, what are you doing?’

The man didn’t answer. For the first time in many days and nights, his face broadened into a huge grin. He took a lurching step forwards.

‘Stop it, mate,’ said the housemate. ‘You’re scaring me.’

The man opened his mouth. He tried to explain how it would be better afterwards. That he only needed a little, just an hour, here and there. But all that came out was:

‘Gahhhhrrghhhh…’

The housemate backed against the wall. His gaze darted this way and that, an animal searching for an exit.

He leapt for the front door.

He almost made it.

#

Hours later, the man woke on the hallway floor. With disbelief, he took in his surroundings, noticing every little detail – the stain where his housemate had spilled red wine on the wall, the scuff from the edge of the kitchen table when they’d first moved in, the thick coating of dust around the lampshade.

With an exhalation, he got to his feet. Not a sigh of effort or exhaustion but relief.

He hadn’t felt so alive in years.

Plans raced through his head. There were so many possibilities now – he could deep clean the flat, bake bread, build a better kitchen table from scratch, invest in the stock market, retrain as a graphic designer, finally get his head around Crypto.

The man did an impromptu dance down the hallway, and as he did, he heard a groan.

Cautiously, the man opened the living room door. His housemate was sitting in the middle of the floor, eyes vacant, head back against the sofa cushion. Every now and again, he would touch his tie, as if trying to remove it, but not remembering how.

Their eyes met. The housemate’s were bloodshot and puffy with exhaustion, ringed with dark shadows. The man’s, wide with recognition and fear.

He shut the door quickly. From inside, came a noise that sounded halfway between a “gah” and an “argh”.

The man tried not to think about it. Instead, he changed into fresh, clean clothes, and began his reawakening.

#

Three days later, the man stood back, surveying his handiwork.

The kitchen counter was covered in flour. Various bread creations cluttered the work surfaces, their failures ranging from unrisen and lumpy to burnt charcoal. The half-finished kitchen table sat in pieces all around him, along with nails, screws and various saws. A laptop with thirty open tabs perched precariously in a corner, a legacy to his unfinished Crypto research. Any surface that wasn’t covered in flour and dangerous DIY was hidden beneath A4 sheets of paper, scrawled illegibly with abandoned ideas and entrepreneurial brainstorms.

The man frowned. Now his manic energy flow was subsiding, he was beginning to realise that wakefulness wasn’t quite how he’d imagined it. Still, he could get this all cleaned up and start again. There was still time.

He was just searching under the sink for the dustpan and brush when the fatigue wave hit him. It lasted little more than a second, but its briefness was matched only by its intensity, a tsunami of exhaustion even stronger than before. He leaned against the counter, reeling from the impact.

It was still there. The sleep hunger.

The man wept bitterly. He had been so close. So close to being free.

But he didn’t cry for long. An idea began inside him, not like the frantic scribblings of the past few days. A nourishing idea, full of substance.

He went back to the living room. His housemate was still on the floor, his chin slumped against his chest, eyes shut. But he wasn’t asleep. The man knew that all too well.

The man called out, and the housemate opened his eyes. He stared blearily at the man, trying to understand what was being said.

The man reached down and pulled the housemate to his feet. The housemate wobbled, leaning heavily against the wall. The man knew he should leave him, that he would be a hinderance. But he felt responsible.

With great care, the man took the housemate by the arm and led him to the front door. The man could already feel his old fatigue setting in, a brain fog extended into endless grey.

He gripped the door handle. After a great effort, it turned, and the man stepped in the fresh air for the first time in days. It did not invigorate him in the slightest.

He felt a sudden weight by his side as his housemate leaned against him, flattened by the sheer effort of walking across the hallway. His eyes were exhausted. Questioning.

The man looked down at the one whose sleep had sustained him for three glorious days. He tried to explain the possibilities. That a housemate’s sleep was one thing, but out there was… was…

He let out a huge yawn, revealing all his teeth. The housemate did the same, a trail of drool landing on his crumbled work shirt.

They looked at one another, exchanging weary smiles. And then, very slowly, they staggered into the street, and out into an unsuspecting world.

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