Asleep in the PM
Fiction by Malcolm Appleton
Woman Reading in the Studio by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
Why does it feel like I’m waking up from more than one night’s sleep this morning? Is it the seasons finally returning to sound and colour? No thoughts intrude on my morning from the moment I awake. My phone goes untouched. Its battery is exhausted, and its glass cold to the touch. I read for an hour until I am hungry, and even then, it is a comfortable grumbling instead of nausea. I have a lot to do but nothing that can’t be handled during a few hours of work, and it’s only 8:30 AM. I have been awake for an hour and a half. I move with leisure. Three cups of coffee, each given an hour instead of ten minutes. I don’t shower till noon, but I don’t feel greasy. I write 2000 words before 2. I achieve in half a day what I could not in a month. Now that I have completed all my tasks, I have free time, and I don’t feel guilty for treating it as such. The night falls like a comfortable fluffy blanket, wrapping me in a drowsy sleepiness that lulls me happily back to bed. Once again, it’s only 11 PM. This will be my cycle. I will make it so.
Malcolm Appleton is a writer of both long-form and short-form fiction, originally from Victoria, British Columbia. He is currently based in Montreal and attends Concordia University as an undergraduate student in Creative Writing.