8-HR Sleep Story: WEIRD Sleep Habits Of Medieval People

This is an 8-hour bedtime story meant tohelp you fall asleep and stay asleep.

This immersive second-person sleep story draws you into the strange rhythms of medieval nights. You begin by discovering how people once slept in two segments, waking in the darkness for prayer or quiet tasks, then drift deeper into the customs and beliefs that shaped life after sunset.

Rather than observing from the outside, you lie within a timbered cottage yourself, rising after first sleep to sit beside fading embers before returning to bed for the second rest.

A low hearth glows in the background, creating a calm, steady atmosphere as the story unfolds at an unhurried pace.

Narrated slowly with minimal stimulation, this track keeps the mind lightly engaged before easing you into deeper relaxation and restful sleep.

Transcript

Hey guys,

Tonight we're diving into something we all understand,

Sleep.

Or at least,

What we think we understand,

Because how people slept in the middle ages was far stranger than you'd expect.

Now get cozy,

Let the day melt away,

And we'll drift back together,

Into the quiet corners of the past.

Past You wake up in the dark,

Confused.

You're not sure if it's morning or midnight or somewhere in between,

But you do know one thing.

You were asleep,

And now you're very much not.

The air in the room is cold and stale.

You shift slightly under the heavy wool blanket that smells like wet barn and burnt tallow,

And for a moment you think maybe you just had a bad dream.

Maybe your sleep got cut short by the usual suspects,

Noise,

Discomfort,

A rat climbing across your chest,

But no.

Around you,

You start to hear others moving too.

Someone's stirring the fire.

Someone else is muttering what might be a prayer or a recipe or both.

A child coughs.

An old man stands up and starts pacing like this is normal.

And it is.

Welcome to your first night of medieval segmented sleep.

See in your world,

Sleep is a single continuous marathon.

Eight hours,

One pillow,

Blackout curtains,

And something about REM cycles that makes you feel guilty for checking your phone after 10pm.

But here,

That concept doesn't exist yet.

You don't sleep once.

You sleep twice.

In chunks.

First sleep,

Then second sleep.

And in between?

A delightful little intermission of medieval wakefulness.

That's what's happening now.

You're in the middle of what the locals simply call the watch.

It's not insomnia.

It's not a sleep disorder.

It's just what people do.

Everyone expects it.

People drift off not long after sunset,

Wrapped in scratchy layers and flattened into hay and about four hours later,

They wake up.

Quietly.

Automatically.

As if summoned by a body clock wired to the sun and the silence.

No alarms.

No caffeine.

Just this shared eerie instinct that somewhere around midnight,

It's time to rise and do.

.

.

Things.

The room is dim,

Lit only by embers and a single candle that someone re-lit with a stick from the hearth.

The glow bounces off the stone walls and illuminates faces in half-light.

A woman squats near the fire,

Stirring a pot like she's preparing a second dinner.

A man in the corner flips through what looks like a religious text,

Mouthing the words silently.

Someone else steps outside to check on the livestock.

Because yes,

There's a real chance your goat has broken loose again.

Apparently goats don't believe in fences or sleep.

You lie there listening.

No one seems panicked or even particularly tired.

There's no sense of crisis,

Just a soft ghostly rhythm to it all.

People talk in low voices.

Some pray.

A few sneak in awkward intimacy under a blanket.

Not because they're scandalous,

But because medieval medical manuals say this is the best time to do it,

The body being calm of mind and well-rested,

Which feels like a polite way of saying nobody's awake enough to argue.

Eventually,

You sit up too.

You're not sure if you're allowed to,

But no one stops you.

You wander over to the fire,

Trying to warm your hands without looking too obviously new here.

Your blanket falls from your shoulders and you instantly regret it.

The air is colder than you thought.

The woman stirring the pot doesn't look at you,

But she does shift to make room.

In the corner,

The old man has fallen back asleep upright,

Head tilted,

Mouth slightly open.

He looks like a statue carved by someone in a hurry.

This waking period usually lasts about an hour or two,

Depending on the season and the personality of the rooster.

It's not busy,

But it's not passive either.

It's useful time,

And people make the most of it.

There's laundry soaking in a bucket.

Someone sharpens a blade by the door.

Another young man leans over a wooden table,

Copying verses from a borrowed prayer book.

It's a strange middle space between night and day,

Work and rest,

Sleep and consciousness.

And here you are,

Trying to stay warm and act like this is completely fine.

You think about crawling back into your bed.

If you can call a bag of straw and bones a bed,

But something about the stillness of the watch keeps you seated.

No one is scrolling through anything.

No one is listening to podcasts or doing breath work or checking sleep stats on an app that shames them for not getting deep sleep.

They're just awake,

Together,

Quietly,

Like a communal ritual no one had to invent because it invented itself.

Eventually,

As silently as it began,

The watch begins to end.

One by one,

People drift back toward their sleeping places.

The fire is stirred once more and covered.

The candle is pinched out.

No words are exchanged.

The woman with the pot covers it and lies down beside it,

As if keeping it company.

Even the goat outside makes a soft,

Grudging bleat before settling again.

You lie back down,

Pull the itchy blanket over your head,

And try to find the shape of comfort again.

You know that second sleep is coming,

That the body will soon slip back into rest like it never left.

You also know that in a few hours,

The church bell will ring,

Or a rooster will scream,

Or someone will step on you trying to get to the door.

But for now,

You close your eyes.

The watch is over.

Second sleep awaits.

You don't know what time it is,

But it feels wrong to be awake.

The fire has burned down to a soft pulse of orange in the hearth,

And the air tastes like smoke,

Wool,

And something unwashed.

You blink a few times,

Hoping to fall back asleep,

But it's no use.

Your body isn't panicking,

It's waiting,

Listening.

And then you realize everyone else is already up.

A few feet away,

Someone shifts under a blanket.

There's a rustling of straw,

The clink of iron,

The low murmur of a voice reciting something old and sacred.

The room is dim and flickering,

But alive.

A man crosses the floor with a ladle and dips it into a bucket,

Sipping like it's the middle of the day.

Someone else is carefully trimming the wick of an oil lamp,

And you can hear the subtle rhythm of breathing layered with the whisper of turning parchment.

The midnight hour has begun,

And here,

That doesn't mean sleep,

It means opportunity.

You sit up,

Unsure whether to join in or fake unconsciousness.

Your blanket falls away,

And the chill reaches your spine like it's owed something.

Across from you,

A girl no older than 15 is reading aloud from a cracked psalter.

Her voice is soft,

Deliberate,

And oddly cheerful,

Like she's done this every night for years.

She doesn't look tired.

No one does.

They look focused.

You shuffle over to the hearth,

Trying to ignore the way the cold floor seeps through your feet.

An older woman is poking the ashes with a piece of iron,

Coaxing a few embers into flame.

Without looking up,

She nudges a stool in your direction.

You sit.

She offers you a bit of bread,

Hard as wood,

And says nothing.

This is the watch,

The quiet window between first and second sleep.

Not everyone uses it the same way,

But everyone uses it.

In some homes,

It's a time for prayer.

In others,

It's a chance to check traps or fix a shoe or whisper things that can't be said in daylight.

You watch a man by the door pull on his boots and slip outside with a torch.

No one asks where he's going.

He doesn't explain.

The woman beside you finally speaks.

Goats do to birth,

She says,

Like that explains everything.

And maybe it does.

You nod solemnly,

As if you too have monitored livestock mid-slumber before.

The bread cracks in your mouth like dry bark.

Across the room,

Someone is mending a tunic by candlelight.

Two boys are whispering about something one of them saw in the woods.

Eyes,

Maybe.

A figure.

Possibly a demon,

But also possibly just the blacksmith's apprentice.

There is nothing frantic about it.

The watch is not a break in sleep,

It's a rhythm.

You wake up not because something's wrong,

But because something is expected.

Medieval physicians claimed this hour was good for the blood,

The bowels,

And the soul.

Like your organs needed the pause to realign.

And as strange as it feels,

You can't deny there's a kind of logic to it.

An eerie,

Unspoken agreement that nighttime isn't for collapsing into unconsciousness and hoping for the best.

It's for tending to what matters.

Fires,

Animals,

Fears,

And occasionally,

Each other.

A man enters from outside,

Stomping snow off his boots.

He smells like smoke and frozen hay.

She's laboring,

He says to no one in particular,

And disappears into the back room.

You're not even sure who she is.

Another voice replies,

Pray she bears this one head first.

And someone else begins quietly singing a hymn under their breath.

Near the fire,

A woman fingers a set of beads and stares into the embers like they might answer something.

You've never seen such peace in such strange circumstances.

Nothing feels urgent,

But nothing is wasted either.

The candlelight throws warped shadows across the wall,

Bending the outline of a broom into something that almost looks human.

You try not to look directly at it.

Eventually the mood shifts again.

The psalter is closed,

The bread is gone.

The old woman lets the fire settle back into its glowing hum and wraps her shawl around her shoulders.

The boys retreat to their blankets.

You follow,

Unsure if you've done this right or wrong.

You curl up on your pile of straw,

Now slightly colder but somehow calmer,

And try to breathe like someone used to this.

Sleep returns,

Not as a surprise,

But as an agreement.

You drift off knowing second sleep is waiting,

Just as it always has.

In a world without clocks or sleep trackers,

Your body has remembered something your mind forgot,

That the night doesn't belong to you all at once.

It arrives in pieces,

And sometimes in between it gives you a moment to wake,

Not in panic,

But in practice.

A strange,

Sacred pause before the silence begins again.

You're lucky,

They say.

You've got a spot near the window.

It's not a large window,

More of an opening,

But it's got a shutter that almost closes,

And there's a small sliver of moonlight bleeding through the cracks.

Someone even calls it fresh air,

Like that's a feature.

You nod politely,

Try to look grateful,

And then lie down next to it like you're not sleeping in the crosshairs of everything that wants to kill you in the dark.

The first thing you notice is the cold.

It seeps in quietly,

Like a rumor,

Starting at your toes and moving up your legs until you're not sure whether your blanket is made of wool or just very committed mist.

The air from the window doesn't drift.

It lunges.

It curls around your neck and down your back,

And every time the wind changes,

It finds a new part of you to ruin.

There is no glass,

Just wood and superstition.

The shutter rattles on its hinge like it's planning to escape,

And if it does,

You're going with it.

You consider moving,

But space is currency,

And your spot's already been claimed by proximity.

Besides,

Sleeping by the fire is reserved for children,

Elders,

Or anyone with an obvious cough.

You're not important enough to sleep warm.

You're window-adjacent,

Which,

In medieval terms,

Is roughly the same thing as bait.

You pull your blanket tighter and shift toward the wall,

Trying to find a position that doesn't feel like being embalmed in frost,

But the wall has its own issues.

It's damp.

Not in theory.

In practice.

Actual moisture weeps through the stone and into your bones,

Reminding you that the outside is always trying to become the inside.

You roll the other way,

Toward the room,

And stare at the shutter.

It stares back.

There's a reason people avoid windows at night.

Actually,

Several.

Some are practical.

The draft,

The damp,

The occasional rat trying to achieve verticality.

But others are more urgent.

The medieval mind doesn't separate sleep from danger.

To sleep near an opening in the wall is to risk more than discomfort.

It's to risk intrusion by man,

Spirit,

Or something in between.

Everyone knows thieves prefer windows,

Not doors,

Which are loud and noticed.

Windows,

Especially ones with missing hinges or rotting edges,

Are perfect for slipping in quietly and stealing whatever's closest.

Blankets,

Boots,

Or people.

You're now closest.

Congratulations.

Then there's the night air.

Not just the cold,

But the belief that the air itself changes after dark.

That it turns sour,

Heavy,

Dangerous.

Miasma,

They call it.

A floating poison that carries disease,

Madness,

And whatever else they can't explain.

Sleeping near a cracked window means breathing in the devil's vapor.

And if you're lucky,

All you'll get is a fever.

If you're not,

You'll wake up dead.

People leave herbs on the windowsill to ward it off.

Lavender,

Sage,

Rosemary if you can spare it.

Sometimes garlic,

Though that's a bit aggressive unless vampires are actively involved.

You don't have any herbs.

You have a soggy blanket and a creeping suspicion that something just moved outside.

You hold your breath.

You listen.

Just wind.

Maybe.

Or a fox.

Or the shadow of your own doubt forming claws in the torchlight.

The thing is,

You're not just afraid of what's outside.

You're afraid of what might come through.

Things without names.

Things old women whisper about but never describe fully.

Sleep demons.

Restless spirits.

Creatures drawn not to warmth but to breath.

And you,

With your inconvenient lungs,

Are practically ringing the dinner bell.

Someone coughs across the room.

Another person shifts and mutters in their sleep.

The shutter creaks again.

You think about stuffing something in the gap.

Hay.

A rag.

Your own face.

But you know it wouldn't matter.

If the cold wants in,

It will come.

If something worse wants in,

It already has your name.

You lie back down and pull the blanket over your ears because everyone knows sound can't pass through wool.

Tomorrow,

They'll tell you that you're lucky to have light from the moon.

That some people sleep in corners with nothing but spiders and regret.

That a little night air is good for the blood,

Builds fortitude.

You'll smile and nod and pretend your toes didn't turn blue while defending your lungs from medieval science.

Eventually,

You sleep.

Not because it's peaceful,

But because your body gives up.

The cold becomes background noise.

The wind,

A lullaby written by ghosts.

You forget about the window and the wall and the air trying to kill you.

You dream of warmth you've never known.

When you wake,

The shutters close tighter than before and someone's left a sprig of rosemary on your blanket.

You don't ask who.

You just breathe as shallowly as possible and hope the air's in a good mood.

The good news is you've been given a place to sleep.

The bad news is it's not a place and it barely counts as sleep.

You're led into the room by candlelight,

Past a man sharpening a knife with his foot,

A child chewing on a chunk of bark like it's a bedtime snack,

And a cat that may or may not be dead.

It doesn't move.

No one checks.

It's none of your business.

Your host gestures to a dark corner near the wall and says,

There.

You squint.

There.

Appears to be a fraying sack stuffed with what smells like wet hay and the memories of old potatoes.

There's a stain.

You hope it's old.

You also hope it's not sentient.

You say thank you because what else are you supposed to say?

You've lost the right to be picky.

In the modern world,

Beds are curated.

Memory foam.

Orthopedic pillows.

Temperature control.

Lavender spray.

Maybe a meditation app whispering confidence into your ear.

Here,

You sleep wherever there's room,

And by room they mean any square foot not already claimed by a person,

Object,

Livestock,

Or puddle.

It's not about comfort.

It's about not dying in the mud.

You sit on your bed.

It crunches.

You lie back.

It wheezes.

Something shifts underneath you with the faint energy of protest.

It could be a rat.

It could be your imagination.

You don't move.

Instead,

You wrap the wool blanket around your shoulders and immediately regret it.

The blanket is damp,

Not soaking,

Just faintly haunted.

It smells like fire,

Mildew,

And armpit.

You try to ignore it.

You've already lost this battle.

To your right,

There's a sick goat.

It breathes louder than you do.

Every few minutes,

It lets out a wet,

Philosophical cough like it's reflecting on the futility of life.

No one reacts.

Apparently,

The goat lives here now.

It has seniority.

Across the room,

Someone's snoring like they're trying to drill a hole through their own skull.

Another person's sleep talks in a language that might be Latin or just very ambitious nonsense.

You shuffle to your side,

Curl into yourself,

And try to create a fortress out of nothing but bone and resignation.

There is no privacy,

No partition,

No polite fiction that this is normal.

You are in a room full of strangers,

One questionable goat,

And a straw pile that has already given up.

You wonder where the others sleep.

Turns out,

Everywhere.

One man is by the hearth using a pile of firewood as a pillow.

A woman has curled up on a bench with a toddler in her lap and her foot wedged in a cooking pot.

Someone is wedged under a table like a medieval Tetris piece.

One person sleeps sitting up against the wall with their eyes open.

You try not to stare.

The hierarchy is unspoken but deeply felt.

Proximity to the fire means status or seniority,

Or you're dying.

Sleeping near the door means you're either brave or expendable.

Sleeping in the corner?

That's where the cold collects.

The floor is crooked.

The walls leak.

The ceiling drips something that smells of disappointment.

But no one complains.

They're used to it.

You,

On the other hand,

Are trying to breathe shallowly and think about something else.

Anything else.

Maybe this is a rite of passage.

Maybe you're building character.

Or maybe you're just one unfortunate roll away from inhaling goat hair and splinters until morning.

Eventually,

You close your eyes.

Not because it's quiet,

And definitely not because it's clean,

But because your body needs sleep more than it needs dignity.

You drift in and out.

Someone steps on your foot.

Someone else mutters a prayer.

The goat coughs again.

You roll onto your back and immediately regret it.

The floor seems to rise up to meet you in a way that suggests resentment.

At some point in the night,

The candle burns out.

The darkness swells.

The room sighs as one big breathing mass.

You are no longer an individual.

You are now part of the collective medieval pile.

You share warmth,

Space,

And fleas.

If not yet in body,

Then in spirit.

You surrender.

When you wake,

Your mouth tastes like wool and ash.

Someone has placed a wooden bowl of cold porridge near your head.

You don't ask who.

You eat it because it's there.

The goat sneezes on your shoulder,

And you flinch just enough to jostle whatever is still living inside your blanket.

You don't check.

There's no point.

This is sleep,

Medieval style.

Not an experience,

But a negotiation.

You don't sleep where it's peaceful.

You sleep where no one else got there first.

Where the floor isn't soaked.

Where the air isn't howling.

Where the goat won't bite you until morning.

And if that counts as rest,

You take it.

Because in a world like this,

The only real luxury is surviving the night still partially upright.

It begins with a fight.

Not a dramatic one.

No swords.

No shouting.

Just two brothers and a splintered bed frame,

Each holding one end of a mattress like they're about to perform a sad,

Hay-stuffed tug of war.

Their mother just died,

And this apparently is what she left them.

Not land.

Not silver.

A bed.

One mattress,

Filled with feathers if you're being generous,

And probably lice if you're being honest.

You're told this is normal.

Feather beds are valuable.

Not just comfortable,

Valuable.

The kind of thing that makes it into a will,

Right alongside the family ox or the cooking pot that only leaks sometimes.

In fact,

You're told,

Some disputes over inheritance aren't about land or titles.

They're about who gets to sleep like someone who matters.

You watch as the older brother insists the bed was promised to him.

The younger one claims he was the one who nursed their mother at the end.

And besides,

The mattress is technically half his since he helped kill the geese.

They go back and forth for a while until a third sibling quietly rolls up the blanket and walks out the door with it.

No one notices for at least five minutes.

When they do,

No one chases her.

The mattress is the real prize.

You learn quickly that in this world,

A bed is not furniture.

It's an asset.

A feather bed is stitched luxury,

A stitched-together symbol that someone in the family was once rich enough to kill birds for comfort.

Peasants don't have these.

Peasants sleep on straw.

Not golden,

Storybook straw.

Real straw.

The kind that gets wet,

Gets moldy,

Gets reused.

And reused.

And reused.

By humans,

Animals,

Insects,

And possibly ghosts.

You saw one peasant bed earlier in the day.

It looked more like compost with ambition.

The smell came before the sight.

A flattened sack filled with straw or hay or whatever was available,

Really.

Sometimes reeds.

Sometimes moss.

Once even cabbage leaves.

It's not cleaned.

You just shake it out occasionally and hope the worst things inside die naturally.

You asked someone once when it was last replaced.

They laughed like that was the funniest thing they'd heard all week.

When it catches fire,

They said.

By contrast,

A feather bed is a generational relic.

A thing to be guarded,

Fluffed with ceremony,

And fought over when the owner dies.

You've heard stories,

Actual whispered family histories,

About beds being hidden during tax collections,

Smuggled across borders,

Or cut in half during inheritance feuds.

There are cases where two siblings slept in alternating shifts on the same mattress for years just to keep things civil.

No one was happy.

Everyone had back pain.

But no one gave it up.

You get the sense that,

In medieval logic,

The bed isn't just for sleeping.

It's a political object.

The nobles pass down rings and swords.

The farmers pass down sacks of goose feathers sewn together with stubbornness and shame.

And if you inherit one,

It means you're somebody.

Not a lord.

Not a scholar.

But someone who might one day sleep with both shoulders off the ground.

Maybe.

That night,

Your host lets you touch the bed.

Just touch.

You walk into the room,

And there it is.

Off the floor,

Raised on a wooden frame,

With a faded quilt draped across the top like it's royalty in repose.

You press your hand into it,

And it gives slightly.

Not like straw,

Which stabs back.

Not like the floor,

Which never cared to begin with.

The feather bed sighs under your palm.

It remembers softness.

No one sleeps in it tonight.

It's being saved.

Preserved.

Too many visitors,

Too much risk.

They say it belonged to the grandmother.

Or maybe her sister.

It's hard to tell because no one agrees on who died when.

All you know is that it's precious enough that they'd rather let it sit untouched than risk giving it to the wrong person.

Or worse,

To someone who doesn't respect it.

You go back to your corner of straw,

Grateful you weren't murdered for making an indent in the quilt.

Your own sleeping sack smells like burnt soup and hooves.

You lie down,

And the straw shifts beneath you like it's offended.

In the quiet,

You can hear someone whispering about the bed again.

They're arguing over whether it's better to keep it here or send it with a cousin.

One voice says it should be buried with its last owner.

To prevent theft or hauntings,

It's unclear.

Another voice says that's a waste.

The feathers,

After all,

Are still good.

Eventually the voices fade.

Someone sneezes.

Someone else groans in their sleep.

You shift to your side,

Careful not to dislodge anything structural.

The mattress might be ancient,

Shared,

And slightly cursed,

But it's better than most.

You think of the brothers,

Still pulling at the ends,

Each convinced the inheritance was love in cotton form.

But here,

Love doesn't come in hugs or heirlooms.

It comes in feathers.

And if you're lucky,

No blood on the blanket.

You arrive at the inn just after sunset,

Soaked from a rainstorm that didn't ask your permission and too tired to argue with your legs.

The building leans slightly to the left,

As if it gave up halfway through construction and never recovered.

Inside,

It smells like stew,

Feet,

And smoke.

Someone's snoring already.

Someone else is arguing over the price of cheese.

A dog limps by,

Dragging what might be a boot or a dead rat.

It's unclear.

No one reacts.

You pay your coin,

Or maybe just your promise,

And the innkeeper nods toward the stairs.

You climb them like they owe you something and reach the top to find a single wooden door already half open.

Inside is a room.

Technically,

It has walls and a floor and an effort at ventilation.

There is no bed waiting,

No pillow,

No turndown service.

What there is is a pile.

A human pile.

Eight people,

Maybe ten.

It's hard to tell because most of them are wrapped in cloaks or wool or each other.

There are limbs overlapping,

Someone's head tucked under someone else's knees,

And one man sitting upright in the corner with his eyes open like he's trying to astrally project somewhere less terrible.

You blink.

No one makes room.

You're just supposed to figure it out.

So you do.

You step carefully over a snoring man with a feather in his hat and squeeze yourself into a thin sliver of space between a woman humming to herself and a large man who is visibly sweating through his third layer of clothing.

You try not to touch anyone.

It doesn't work.

The moment you lie down,

Your elbow hits a shin,

Someone's braid drapes across your face,

And a knee lands squarely against your lower back with the force of deep ancestral resentment.

This is how medieval inns work.

Privacy is an illusion.

Space is a luxury.

Beds are communal,

And the only real rule is don't die in your sleep unless you do it quietly.

The idea of booking a private room doesn't exist unless you're a noble or carrying something incredibly contagious.

For everyone else,

Sleep is a group activity,

Like a meeting no one wanted to attend.

The man next to you clears his throat and says something that might be a greeting or a warning.

You nod.

He shifts.

The sweat transfers.

The woman beside you is still humming,

Something low and repetitive,

Like a lullaby sung by someone who has never seen peace.

Her eyes are closed,

But her fingers keep moving.

She's either praying or counting lice.

There's no blanket for you,

Just the warmth of strangers and the vague aroma of onions.

You shift slightly,

And a child you didn't know was there kicks you in the thigh.

You apologize.

The child does not.

A dog climbs onto your shins and sighs with the satisfaction of someone who knows exactly what they're doing.

It curls into a shape that makes your legs irrelevant.

Someone farts.

No one reacts.

The room is warm,

But not in a cozy way.

It's warm in the way a crowded market is warm,

Dense,

Wet,

And non-negotiable.

The air doesn't move.

The ceiling leaks slightly in one corner,

But no one's there.

That's premium space.

Everyone wants the middle,

The center of the mass.

The innkeeper says it retains heat.

What it really retains is collective body odor and breath.

You try to sleep.

You try to forget that you can feel someone's heel pressing into your ribs,

That you're inhaling three other people's exhalations,

That someone just muttered the phrase don't let it see you in their sleep.

You try not to imagine what it is.

The woman stops humming.

She starts whispering instead.

It's worse.

You wonder,

Briefly,

What happens if you snore.

Or sleepwalk.

Or wake up in the night needing to relieve yourself.

Where would you even go?

Down the stairs?

Past the arguing cheese man?

Out into the rain?

And behind the compost heap?

It feels like too much.

You decide instead that you will simply not have needs.

That's safer.

The night drags on in slow,

Sticky inches.

Occasionally someone shifts,

And it causes a domino effect across the pile.

Knees dislodge,

Backs roll.

A head ends up on your shoulder.

You let it.

There's no point resisting.

You're part of the living architecture now.

A support beam made of resentment and fatigue.

Eventually the room falls into a kind of rhythm.

Not quiet,

But consistent.

Breathing,

Muttering,

Shifting,

Sighing.

It's almost musical.

You stop fighting it.

You let yourself drift.

Not into rest.

There's no rest here.

But into the heavy gray space between awareness and surrender.

Morning comes without warning.

A rooster cries in the distance.

Or maybe just someone pretending to be one.

People start to stir.

You peel yourself off the floor,

Remove a small piece of someone else's beard from your sleeve,

And stand up slower than gravity intended.

No one says good morning.

No one says anything.

You leave the room,

Limbs aching,

Heart a little confused,

And head down to whatever counts as breakfast.

The dog follows you.

It knows you're weak now.

You don't argue.

You made it through the night.

The stranger pile has let you go.

For now.

You feel it before you see it.

A small itch just beneath your collarbone.

Then another on your shin.

Then your scalp.

You tell yourself it's just the straw.

Or the wool.

Or maybe your imagination.

But deep down you know.

You've joined the ecosystem.

In this world you don't sleep alone.

You share your body with things that don't ask permission.

Fleas.

Lice.

Bedbugs.

Tiny medieval roommates with no concept of personal space.

They live in the seams of your tunic,

The folds of your blanket,

The corners of the room.

You are their host.

You didn't invite them,

But they've moved in anyway,

And they're redecorating your skin.

You shift in your straw bed,

Trying to scratch without moving too much.

You don't want to wake the person beside you.

They're snoring peacefully,

Which means either they're used to it,

Or they've given up entirely.

You envy them.

The innkeeper warned you,

Sort of.

He said,

Don't mind the little ones.

They only bite if they like you.

You thought he meant mice.

He did not.

He meant the ones so small they can live in your socks.

You laugh quietly to yourself.

You're a favorite.

There's no soap.

Not real soap.

There's lye,

Which is just pain pretending to be hygiene.

There's ash,

And maybe some sand if you're lucky.

But there's no lavender-scented anything.

No scrub.

No shampoo.

No comfort.

Clean is a concept,

Not a condition.

Clean is how you describe something that hasn't been too recently infected.

The people around you don't scratch.

That's the scariest part.

They just exist with it.

One woman casually plucks something from her sleeve,

Flicks it into the fire,

And keeps talking.

A man beside her has a small comb made from bone and uses it like a violinist tuning an invisible instrument.

No one watches.

It's not rude.

It's normal.

You finally sit up and examine your blanket in the firelight.

You try not to recoil.

Something crawls.

Something hops.

Something else might be dead or pretending.

You stop looking.

The blanket is warm,

And that's all that matters.

You tuck it back around your shoulders like the denial it is.

A child near the hearth is being checked for lice.

Their mother parts the hair with mechanical efficiency,

Pulling out nits like it's a daily routine.

Because it is.

Lice aren't considered a problem.

They're a fact.

Like the weather.

Or taxes.

You have them.

Everyone has them.

You just try to keep the numbers down,

Like population control,

But for parasites.

Someone mentions vinegar,

Not to drink,

But to rub on the scalp.

It stings,

But it works,

Unless your lice are stubborn,

Which they usually are.

You don't ask for vinegar.

You just sit there,

Scratching slowly,

Pretending it doesn't bother you.

This is survival.

This is etiquette.

The bites don't itch forever.

That's the trick.

After a while,

You stop feeling them.

Not because they're gone,

Because your body decides to stop alerting you.

It has better things to worry about,

Like staying warm,

Breathing smoke,

Or not rolling into the fire.

You learn to adapt.

You shake out your tunic in the morning,

Not to clean it,

But to knock the worst of the living debris loose.

You check your boots before putting them on.

Not for pebbles,

But for things with legs.

You don't ask for fresh sheets,

Because sheets aren't fresh.

They're inherited,

Shared,

Sometimes scraped,

Occasionally burned.

The woman next to you leans over and hands you a small twig.

It's chewed at one end.

You look at it.

She smiles faintly.

To scratch,

She says.

You take it like a gift,

Because it is.

In the corner of the room,

Someone is boiling water,

Not for tea,

But to scald a tunic.

The steam rises,

Curling into the rafters where moths live like royalty.

No one opens a window.

Cold kills fewer things than heat.

This is the closest thing to pest control you'll see.

Eventually,

You stop scratching.

Not because it's over,

But because your skin is tired.

The bites have formed their own community,

A sort of raised relief map of your suffering.

You lie back down and press your cheek into the pillow,

Which isn't a pillow at all,

Just a bag of straw with dreams stitched inside.

Sleep comes,

Not like a blessing,

But like a truce.

You and your pests settle into an agreement.

No major movements until morning.

You'll let them feast if they let you rest.

It's not peace.

It's coexistence.

In the darkness,

You feel something crawl across your ankle.

You flinch.

Then you don't.

Your body understands now.

This isn't an invasion.

It's local culture.

You drift off with one hand on your stomach and the other still holding the scratch twig,

Just in case.

Someone announces it's bedtime by snuffing the last candle with their fingers.

You expect people to start undressing,

Maybe pulling off boots,

Loosening belts,

Winding down like civilized sleepers.

Instead,

They begin adding layers.

A woman pulls a second tunic over her first one.

A man unfolds what looks like a blanket,

But then wraps it around himself like a toga and fastens it with a bone pin.

A child is being stuffed into what appears to be a sack with sleeves.

Someone else calmly ties a clove of garlic around their neck.

You're confused,

But no one else seems to be.

This is just how people dress for sleep.

Not for comfort,

Not for style,

But for survival.

Sleep here isn't something you ease into.

It's something you prepare for,

Like a storm or battle.

The room is freezing,

Even with the fire still flickering.

The stones in the wall feel like they've been holding on to January since it began.

There's no insulation,

No central heat,

No hot water bottles or heated mattress pads,

Just wool.

Wool and prayer.

And if you don't have enough wool,

You layer shame on top.

You try to follow suit.

You leave your boots on.

You wrap your cloak around your body twice and lie down,

But immediately your toes go stiff and your fingers feel like they've been soaking in snow.

You watch a man next to you pull on what can only be described as sleep armor.

Three layers of tunic,

A leather vest,

Two scarves,

And a padded coif tied snug under his chin,

Like he's heading to the front lines of a particularly cozy siege.

Someone's rattling in the corner.

You glance over and realize it's not rattling.

It's chain mail.

A young man,

Possibly a mercenary,

Or just very paranoid,

Is lying on his back with his helmet beside him and his hauberk still on.

His sword rests across his chest like a blanket of poor decisions.

No one questions it.

He might be expecting trouble.

He might just be cold.

There's a boy near the hearth who's been dressed for bed by his grandmother.

She's layered him like a pastry.

Shirt,

Tunic,

Wool robe,

Another tunic.

Then a knitted cap pulled low over his eyebrows.

She tucks a strip of linen into his collar like a scarf then kisses his forehead with the same intensity you'd use to bless someone before battle.

The boy doesn't move.

He looks like he can't.

You look down at yourself and wonder if you've made a mistake.

You brought one blanket and a reasonably thick cloak.

You thought that would be enough.

You were wrong.

Cold in the medieval world is not ambient.

It's aggressive.

It doesn't creep.

It lunges.

And it always finds your ankles first.

Across the room,

A woman mutters a prayer while adjusting her fourth sock.

Her nightshirt hangs loose,

Belted with twine,

And you spot another clove of garlic at her waist.

Whether it's for warmth or warding off demons,

No one says.

Maybe both.

She lies down with a sigh like someone clocking out of their shift at the apocalypse.

You ask someone about the garlic.

They shrug.

Bad dreams,

They say.

You ask if it works.

They shrug again.

I still wake up.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement,

But you're considering it anyway.

You've already accepted the lice.

Why not add cloves?

Eventually,

You lie back down,

Shivering under your blanket,

Limbs coiled tightly inwards.

The man next to you shifts,

And you hear the soft jingle of his armor settling.

Somewhere behind you,

Someone coughs into fabric.

A baby lets out a single cry,

Then goes silent.

The fire pops once,

Spitting out a shower of sparks.

You can smell smoke,

Sweat,

Wool,

And the faint tang of tallow and onions.

No one is comfortable.

That's the baseline.

Comfort isn't the goal.

Preservation is.

To survive the night without losing sensation in your fingers is considered a victory.

Warmth is earned through layering,

Proximity,

And sheer willpower.

You envy the boy with the wool pastry shell.

You envy the woman who has mastered the scarf and garlic method.

You even envy the man in chain mail.

He's probably cold,

But at least he's armored against it.

Sleep doesn't come easily.

Your feet are too cold.

Your shoulders ache.

Your nose won't stop running.

But eventually,

Exhaustion beats discomfort,

And your mind drifts just enough to forget the sting in your fingers.

You start to dream of beds that don't require tactical planning,

Of duvets,

Of central heating,

Of socks that match.

When you wake,

The man in armor is gone.

So is the woman with the garlic.

The boy is still bundled,

Looking vaguely victorious.

You stretch your neck and something pops.

You've survived the night.

Barely.

One toe at a time.

No one says good morning.

Someone just hands you a piece of hard bread and nods toward the door.

You nod back and silently vow to steal someone's second tunic before sunset.

You're not dressing for bed anymore.

You're dressing for war.

You wake up in a panic.

Your body is drenched in sweat.

Your mouth tastes like ash and wool.

In the dream,

A man with no face handed you a glowing fish then told you to bury it under the church before sunrise.

You didn't.

You overslept.

Now you're sitting upright in the dark,

Wondering if you're going to hell.

Someone beside you stirs.

A voice murmurs.

You saw something,

Didn't you?

You hesitate.

The dream is still clinging to your skin like fever.

You nod.

The voice doesn't ask for details.

It doesn't have to.

Around here,

Dreams are more than dreams.

They're confessions waiting to happen.

In the medieval world,

Sleep isn't just rest.

It's litigation.

Your dreams are spiritual transcripts.

Every image,

Every word,

Every impossible animal juggling fire while reciting scripture is interpreted as either a message from God or a full-blown demonic visitation.

There is no middle ground.

Your subconscious is a courtroom,

And you're the defendant.

Earlier that week,

Someone dreamed of drowning and was told to fast for three days to cleanse the omen.

Another man confessed to lust because he saw a woman's ankle in a dream and woke up slightly too cheerful.

A child claimed he spoke with angels in his sleep,

And now no one lets him near sharp objects.

You've seen a priest nod solemnly at a dream involving a talking sheep,

Then assign penance with a straight face.

There's no such thing as a weird dream here,

Just suspicious ones.

You once mentioned a dream where a goat danced on two legs.

You meant it as a joke.

They didn't laugh.

A woman crossed herself.

Someone else muttered about fire and brimstone.

Now you think about that goat every night,

Just in case it shows up again with a message you're supposed to decode.

Maybe it wasn't just a goat.

Maybe it was the devil.

Or maybe the devil just has a sense of humor.

You try to lie back down,

But your body resists.

The room feels hotter now,

Like the dream left something behind.

You pull the blanket up to your chin and stare at the rafters,

Half expecting something to crawl out of them.

Dreams have rules here.

If you sin in one,

It counts.

If you see a demon,

You tell someone.

If you don't,

And something happens later —plague,

Famine,

A cow giving birth to a two-headed calf— it's your fault.

There's a system for this.

Dreams are shared at breakfast,

Dissected over broth and bread.

Someone always knows what it means.

Your teeth falling out?

You've been dishonest.

Flying over a field?

Pride?

Being chased by dogs?

You're avoiding repentance.

No one dreams just because.

There's a reason.

And if there isn't,

They'll make one up.

The Church treats dreams like surveillance footage.

God watching your soul with a shaky camera and bad lighting,

But still admissible in court.

Monks keep dream journals.

Some priests specialize in interpretation.

One woman in the next village is considered touched by the Divine because she dreamed of a burning tree that never fell.

And the very next day,

A lightning strike took out half the manor's orchard.

She's not allowed to eat alone anymore.

You shift again,

The dream still echoing behind your ribs.

You wonder if you should confess it,

Not because you think it's sinful,

But because someone else might.

And if you don't say it first,

Someone could say it for you.

That's worse.

Silence is guilt here,

Especially if your dreams involve glowing objects,

Riddles,

Or animals with opinions.

Someone across the room starts talking in their sleep.

It's a low,

Breathy murmur,

Words you don't recognize.

Someone else shushes them.

You hear the scrape of straw in a whispered prayer.

Everyone pretends to sleep,

But you know no one really is.

They're waiting to see if the dreamer says something dangerous.

If the name of a saint slips out,

Or a sin,

Or a prophecy,

Then they'll decide whether to wake him or salt the doorway.

You close your eyes and try not to think of the fish,

Or the faceless man,

Or the dirt under the church that you didn't dig.

You tell yourself it was nothing,

Just a fever dream,

A product of bad bread or cold feet.

But part of you knows that's not how it works here.

You'll have to explain it.

Maybe not today.

Maybe not even this week.

But it will come up.

And when it does,

You'd better have a spiritual takeaway.

By morning,

You've decided to confess the dream.

But leave out the part where the fish talked.

That might be too much.

You'll say it was glowing.

Yes,

But silently,

Reverently,

Like a symbol.

Not an omen.

Definitely not a threat.

You'll throw in a quick prayer about humility and maybe ask for some fasting bread,

Just in case.

Because here,

Sleep is not safe.

Dreams are not private.

And your soul is always on trial,

Even when you're just trying to rest.

At first,

You think it's just someone getting up to relieve themselves.

A soft shuffle across the floorboards,

The creak of a shifting body,

The almost polite rustle of wool.

You try to ignore it.

You're half asleep,

Half frozen,

And fully not interested in conversation.

But the shuffling doesn't stop.

It circles.

Then it thumps.

Then it bumps into the side of your straw mat with a force that says,

I'm not awake.

And I don't care who knows it.

You open your eyes.

And there he is.

Standing.

Eyes open,

Sort of.

Arms slack.

Face vacant.

He's not blinking.

Not breathing right.

His nightshirt is soaked with sweat down the back.

And he's holding a candlestub in one hand that isn't lit and doesn't seem like it ever was.

He's staring at the wall.

You realize,

Slowly,

He's been muttering something.

A prayer,

Maybe.

Or a threat.

It's hard to tell when the words come out backwards.

No one else has noticed yet.

Or they have.

And they're pretending they haven't.

That's understandable.

You think about pretending,

Too.

Then he turns.

His head rotates first.

Too far.

Like a puppet's.

And that's when the woman beside you lets out a gasp sharp enough to cut the silence.

Now everyone's awake.

The room erupts like a kicked beehive.

Blankets fly.

Someone yells,

He's marked!

Someone else shouts,

Check his tongue!

One older man just starts praying immediately,

Eyes clenched shut like the mere sight of the sleepwalker might invite eternal damnation into his socks.

You watch as the sleeper stumbles toward the hearth,

Dragging one foot behind him like something ancient is borrowing his bones.

Someone grabs a bowl of water.

Another snatches a bundle of herbs from above the door.

A third person ties a strip of linen around their own wrist and whispers a name you're not supposed to hear at night.

You're no longer in a sleeping room.

You're in a mobile spiritual crisis center.

Welcome to medieval sleepwalking protocol.

Panic first.

Ask questions later.

The theory goes something like this.

When a person walks in their sleep,

They are not themselves.

The soul has stepped out,

Gone wandering,

Or worse,

Been pulled out,

Which means whatever is inside the body now might not be friendly.

It might not even be fully human.

There's a word they use,

Not sleepwalker.

That would be too simple.

They call them noctum-carried,

Night-carried,

Like the person was taken somewhere,

By someone,

For something,

And if they make it back,

It's your job to make sure they're still them when they do.

Someone tosses salt at the man's feet.

He doesn't notice.

Someone else is waving smoke in slow circles around his head.

The priest's apprentice has entered the room,

Half-dressed and barefoot,

Holding a wooden cross like it might start glowing if pointed correctly.

He begins speaking Latin with the speed and confidence of someone hoping no one checks his grammar.

You stay seated,

Still,

Breathing through your nose.

You were not trained for this.

The man suddenly jerks,

Drops the candle,

And begins to hum.

It's tuneless.

It might be crying.

It might be laughing.

Either way,

Two people rush him and wrap a blanket around his shoulders like they're trying to smother a small thunderstorm.

He doesn't resist.

He just slumps and whispers,

She wouldn't let me go.

That's it.

That's enough.

One of the women starts tying his ankle to a wooden beam with a frayed leather strap.

For next time,

She mutters,

If the spirit wants to leave,

It'll have to drag the bed with it.

You learn quickly that this isn't a one-time event.

Sleepwalking isn't just strange.

It's an emergency.

A soul-out-of-body situation.

A doorway left open.

And doorways,

Especially at night,

Are not to be trusted.

The solution?

Tie them down.

Literally.

Ankles to posts.

Wrists to mats.

Some people even thread twine around their toes and loop it to the bed frame just in case.

A tangle of knots and knots and knots meant not to restrain the person,

But to restrain the exit.

And if that doesn't work,

There are prayers,

Chants,

Chalk symbols on the doorframe,

A bowl of fresh milk left by the bed.

Not to drink,

Just to watch.

If it curdles by dawn,

You'll know something passed through.

Eventually the man is laid back down,

Wrapped like a parcel and breathing normally.

Someone sprinkles ashes around the mat and recites three psalms in a row,

Just to be thorough.

You don't sleep.

No one really does.

You lie there with your eyes open,

Wondering how close your soul is to the edge of your body,

Wondering if the dreams that feel like falling are actually you,

Starting to drift.

Before sunrise,

Someone ties a thin cord around your ankle.

You don't argue.

You just nod.

Because if there's one thing worse than being a sleepwalker here,

It's being the one who didn't tie themselves down.

You thought it would be better.

A castle,

Stone walls,

Thick doors,

Maybe even a private bed.

For once you were optimistic.

You walked through the arched entry with your head high,

Soaking in the torchlight,

The tapestries,

The dramatic echo of your own footsteps.

You were ready for warmth,

For quiet,

For the sort of sleep only the rich can afford.

And then you were shown to your room.

It's technically a room.

Four stone walls,

One narrow slit of a window,

And a bed that appears to be made of velvet,

Wrought,

And an idea someone once had about luxury.

There's no fire.

There is,

However,

A draft so persistent it feels sentient.

You try to close the door behind you,

But it doesn't latch.

It never latches.

No castle door was built to shut quietly,

Or fully.

Every gust of wind,

Every passing servant,

Every click of boot against stone finds its way into your chamber like it owns the place,

Which you realize it probably does.

You sit on the bed.

It exhales,

Not in a comforting way,

More like a wet sigh.

You put your hand on the blanket.

It's heavy,

Not from thread count or craftsmanship,

But from age.

Centuries of use and unwashed history.

It smells like damp velvet and the kind of perfume that could only be applied with a hammer.

You pull it back,

And the sheet underneath is moist,

Not soaked,

Just committed to being unpleasant.

There's no straw here,

No communal pile,

No goat hacking up philosophy in the corner.

This is noble living,

Which apparently means cold,

Cavernous,

And echoing with every godforsaken sound this stone tomb can produce.

Somewhere in the distance,

Someone drops a bucket.

It ricochets across the flagstones like it's auditioning for a war.

Footsteps follow,

Then voices,

Then a slamming door that wasn't even yours.

You lie back anyway,

Because you're tired,

Because you've earned this somehow,

Because even the wet velvet beats sleeping with someone else's knee in your ribs.

But as soon as you close your eyes,

You hear it again.

The servants,

Always walking,

Always muttering.

None of them understand how to walk lightly.

The boots are made of wood.

The floor is made of stone.

The acoustics are designed by demons.

You pull the blanket tighter.

It clings to you like mildew.

The pillow is no help.

It's flat,

But somehow lumpy,

Possibly stuffed with expired feathers or unsuccessful curses.

You shift.

The bed frame creaks loud enough to alert the guard tower.

You hold your breath.

Nothing happens.

Then a draft creeps across your collarbone like a petty ghost looking for attention.

You wrap the blanket around your head and begin bargaining with gravity.

At least in the rat pile,

Everyone was quiet or too miserable to move.

Here,

People are awake at all hours.

You hear servants laughing three corridors away.

A dog barks somewhere near the kitchens.

A door slams again.

Always the doors.

Always the wind.

The tapestries flutter like they're trying to warn you of something,

Probably pneumonia.

You'd kill for the warmth of too many people,

The stink of shared sweat,

The rhythmic snoring of strangers packed together like sausages.

Here,

You have space,

Cold,

Echoing,

Judgmental space,

And a velvet blanket that has probably absorbed more noble sweat than any battlefield.

Your toes are freezing.

The fire in the hallway must have gone out hours ago.

No one brings coals to your room because technically,

This isn't your room.

You're a guest,

A tolerated one,

Which means you don't get warmth.

You get reverence and silence.

And that one creaking rafter above your head that seems to groan every few minutes like it's considering falling.

You hear the latch down the hall again.

It echoes like a church bell.

Another set of footsteps.

You roll onto your side,

Pull the blanket tighter,

And press your face into the pillow,

Which now smells faintly of dust and forgotten secrets.

You long for the straw pile,

For the dog curled against your feet,

For the woman who hummed tunelessly and smelled like garlic.

That was sleep.

This is performance.

Eventually,

Your body gives up.

Not because you're comfortable,

But because exhaustion always wins.

You drift into a restless,

Shivering half-sleep punctuated by whispers,

Bangs,

Gusts,

And dreams of being buried alive in velvet.

When you wake,

The blanket has slid halfway off.

The candle is out.

Your neck hurts.

The cold has moved into your bones and started redecorating.

You sit up,

Look around,

And feel absolutely nothing for the stone walls.

You miss the rat,

The pile,

Even the goat,

Because castles weren't built for sleep.

They were built to impress people you'll never meet and echo every mistake you make at 3 a.

M.

It begins with a bell,

Not a gentle one,

Not the kind you hear in bedtime stories or the background of a pleasant morning.

This one is iron and judgment,

Rung from a tower that seems closer to heaven than to earth,

Though the sound crashes down like thunder into your bones.

You wake instantly,

Heart pounding,

Vision smeared,

Brain still inside whatever dream you were having,

Something about warmth,

Probably.

But that's gone now.

The cold isn't just present.

It's awake.

It slithers down your back and coils around your ankles like it's been waiting.

The monks are already moving.

They don't speak.

They don't yawn.

They rise with the practiced dread of people who've done this every night for decades.

You try to stay still,

But someone touches your shoulder and says nothing,

Just a nod,

A gesture.

You're expected to follow.

It's 2 a.

M.

Welcome to Matins.

You swing your feet off the mattress,

Or what passes for one,

And immediately regret it.

The floor is stone,

And the stone is not just cold,

It's ancient cold,

Cold that's been steeping in silence for centuries.

You fumble for your cloak,

Wrap it tight,

And shuffle barefoot behind a procession of wool and discipline.

No one looks at you.

You don't blame them.

Down the hall,

The bell tolls again.

You swear it echoes inside your teeth.

The corridor is lit by a single torch that seems more symbolic than functional.

Shadows stretch long across the walls,

Flickering like saints disapproving of your posture.

You descend a narrow staircase where the cold gets worse,

Which you didn't think was possible,

But here it is.

Cathedral cold.

Monastic cold.

Cold that feels holy in the way pain sometimes does.

They file into the chapel without a word.

You follow,

Because what else is there to do?

The air inside the chapel is heavy with wax and stone dust and something older than language.

The monks kneel.

You try to kneel.

Your knees argue.

The floor doesn't care.

You bow your head like you belong,

Even though your breath is fogging in front of your face and your toes feel like they've been turned into glass.

Then,

From the silence,

The chanting begins.

It's low,

Measured,

The kind of sound that doesn't rise so much as emerge like a vibration from the walls themselves.

Latin psalms,

Ancient and precise.

You don't know the words.

You don't need to.

They roll over you,

Cold and sharp and repetitive.

You try to follow along,

Mumbling syllables that might be right or wrong.

No one corrects you.

You glance around.

No one is blinking.

No one looks tired.

Their mouths move in rhythm,

Their spines straight,

Their eyes half-closed in something between prayer and defiance.

You are the only one shivering.

You are the only one watching the candle wax pool like spilled breath.

Time unravels.

The chanting continues.

The bell tolls again.

A second reading.

Then a pause.

A silent bow.

Someone begins a different verse slightly faster.

You don't know what's happening,

But your knees hurt,

Your hands are numb,

And your thoughts are crawling towards sleep like wounded animals.

And yet,

You stay awake.

That's the purpose.

Not comfort.

Not understanding.

Awakeness.

You are not here to rest.

You are here to be aware of sin,

Of salvation,

Of cold.

You're here to deny the flesh and submit to something greater than warmth.

You think of your bed,

Lumpy,

Sure,

But dry.

You think of the pile of bodies you once despised and now miss.

You think of garlic necklaces and sleepwalking men and dogs that didn't judge.

But here,

In this stone temple of sacred insomnia,

There is only breath and cold and sound.

Your lips crack as you mouth the last response.

The final psalm ends.

The echo lingers,

Then folds in on itself.

No applause.

No warmth.

Just the sound of fabric shifting as the monks rise.

You rise too,

Legs screaming.

Your feet hit the stone again.

You shuffle back through the corridors,

Through the dark,

Through the sleep you almost had.

No one speaks.

No one smiles.

This isn't a community.

It's a covenant.

And you were a guest in it,

For now.

Back in your cell,

The bed feels like a sin.

But you crawl under the blanket anyway.

It's still cold.

Everything is.

But your ears still hum with Latin.

And your chest feels slightly hollow in the way silence sometimes does after music.

You lie awake for a while,

Afraid to fall asleep in case the bell returns.

It always does.

Eventually.

It starts with a grunt.

Not yours.

Something heavier,

Wetter.

Then a shift in the straw beside you,

Slow,

Deliberate,

And accompanied by a smell that doesn't belong to any human diet.

You open your eyes just in time to see a pig reposition itself half an inch closer to your legs and exhale with the force of a bellows.

Congratulations.

You're not alone in bed tonight.

And that's by design.

Because here,

In this drafty corner of someone's barn-turned-bedroom,

The animals sleep with you.

Not because it's cute.

Not because you miss your pet back home.

But because they're warm and the wind has been howling through the thatch like it's trying to peel your soul from your ribs.

The pig,

As it turns out,

Is not just company.

It's central heating.

A dog is curled against your back,

Pressed close enough that you can feel its ribs rise and fall.

It smells like earth and whatever it killed earlier that day.

But you don't move.

You need its warmth.

It needs yours.

That's the deal.

And above your head,

Tucked into a little wooden box nailed to the wall,

A pair of chickens murmur softly in their sleep.

One lets out a sleepy cluck,

Shifts on its perch,

And settles again.

You're not sure which one wakes you up in the morning,

The sun or the chicken.

But it doesn't matter.

They both beat the rooster.

There's no mattress here,

Just straw over dirt with a few sacks stitched from old tunics laid on top like someone thought that would help.

It doesn't.

But what does help,

Surprisingly,

Is the pig.

Its belly is like a furnace wrapped in bacon grease.

It snorts in its sleep and occasionally kicks.

But compared to the cold stone of a castle floor,

It's paradise.

You've named it Harold,

Not out loud,

Just in your head.

Naming something makes it feel more intentional,

Less like you've lost the last shreds of your former life.

In the first hour,

You were horrified.

You kept flinching every time the pig shifted or the dog licked its paws or the chicken farted,

Which,

Yes,

Chickens apparently can do.

But now,

Halfway through the night,

You're starting to understand.

Warmth doesn't come from fireplaces here,

Not unless you're rich.

It comes from breath and fur and body heat shared without shame.

You're part of a pile again,

But this time the pile snorts.

Someone else in the room coughs,

A human this time,

An older man sleeping under a blanket made of stitched wool and probably sorrow.

He doesn't stir when the dog barks softly in its sleep or when you shift to keep your foot from going numb.

He's used to this.

They all are.

You're the only one who flinches when the pig sneezes.

In this world,

The animals live inside not because they're loved,

But because they're needed.

Every ounce of heat matters.

The walls are thin.

The wind cuts through everything.

The thatch lets in snow if it tries hard enough.

So the animals sleep where it's warm and where they can't be stolen.

Chickens are alarm clocks and dinner.

Dogs are guards and blankets.

Pigs are heat,

Meat,

And occasionally a source of existential comfort in the dead of night.

You wonder what your past self would say if they saw you now,

Curled up beside livestock,

Trying to fall asleep while feathers drift down from above and a dog dreams loud enough to vibrate your spine.

But your past self didn't have to choose between freezing alone and cuddling with barnyard friends.

That version of you didn't understand what desperation smells like.

You do now.

It smells like straw,

Pig breath,

And salvation.

The dog stretches,

Jabs you in the kidney with one paw,

And sighs.

You don't even flinch this time.

You shift to make room.

You're learning,

Adaptation through submission,

Through understanding that sleep here isn't about comfort.

It's about survival.

And in the hierarchy of survival,

Your body doesn't care if the warmth comes from a silk sheet or a slightly flatulent pig named Harold.

Warm is warm.

Morning comes slowly.

The chicken starts first,

A few soft clucks followed by a rustle.

Then the dog sits up,

Shakes its coat,

And sneezes directly into your arm.

The pig is last to move,

Groaning like an old priest before rolling to its feet and snorting toward the door,

Clearly unimpressed by the rising sun.

You stretch,

Stiff and grateful.

Every joint aches.

You smell like everything that happened in the night.

But you're not cold.

Not really.

Not compared to what you felt before.

And for that,

You reach over and scratch Harold gently behind the ear.

He grunts,

Unimpressed.

But you mean it.

You survived the night,

Wrapped in fur,

Feathers,

And the faint hope that you're not dreaming.

You'll never look at a barnyard the same way again.

It's the kind of silence that has weight,

Not the cozy,

Library hush you remember from childhood or the polite stillness before a performance.

This is different.

This silence feels like a rule,

A law carved into stone and whispered into bone.

It surrounds you,

Presses into your ears,

Sits on your tongue.

It's not natural.

It's enforced.

You're sleeping in a monastery tonight.

And here,

Silence is not a suggestion.

It is a sacred vow.

Not just during the day when monks glide through the corridors like ghosts avoiding eye contact,

But at night too.

Especially at night.

The kind of silence that could smother a sneeze.

The kind that makes you hyper-aware of how loud breathing actually is.

How every shift of a blanket,

Every twitch of a foot feels like a drumbeat in a cathedral.

You were warned in a hushed whisper by a younger monk who may or may not have already broken his vow just by telling you.

No talking.

No whispering.

No humming.

Sleep in silence or don't sleep at all.

You thought he was exaggerating.

You thought they'd be lenient with guests.

They are not.

You lie in a long stone dormitory filled with narrow beds tucked against the walls,

Each one barely wide enough to contain the average sinner.

The other men around you have already arranged themselves into corpse-like poses,

Hands on their chests,

Eyes closed,

Breathing slow.

You wonder if they're truly asleep or just performing piety for each other.

Either way,

You know better than to ask.

Your first mistake was clearing your throat.

Not loudly.

Just a soft,

Subconscious attempt to scratch the dry edge inside.

A small sound,

Almost tender,

But it echoes.

Oh,

It echoes.

Brother Thomas opens one eye,

Just one,

A single ancient orb peering out from under a woollen brow like a warning candle.

You freeze.

He doesn't move,

Just stares,

Then closes it again.

Message received.

You will not clear your throat again tonight.

You adjust your blanket,

Slowly,

Carefully,

Like diffusing a bomb.

You're afraid to exhale through your mouth.

Every creak of the cot feels like a confession.

You try to slow your breathing,

Match the rhythm of the room.

It's quiet.

Too quiet.

You're not used to sleeping without noise anymore,

Without some background hum,

A murmured podcast,

The whir of something electric.

This silence is ancient.

It has teeth.

And then,

Just as your heartbeat begins to settle,

Someone snores.

It's a wet,

Sudden,

Absolutely unapologetic burst from somewhere down the line.

It starts like a cough but rounds out into a low rumble,

Like a bear discovering Gregorian chant.

No one moves.

No one sighs.

But the air changes.

Something tightens.

A ripple in the stillness.

You see Brother Thomas shift beneath his blanket.

He doesn't get up.

Not yet.

Just rotates one shoulder like a soldier rehearsing his draw.

The snoring continues.

A full-bodied nasal opera.

Rattling through the stone walls like thunder filtered through a horn.

You close your eyes tighter,

Trying not to laugh.

Not because it's funny,

But because the alternative is weeping.

Another monk stirs.

A soft rustle,

Followed by the unmistakable,

Universally recognized gesture of irritation.

The blankets snap.

The snorer pauses.

Half a second,

Then louder.

Brother Thomas sits up.

You open one eye,

Careful.

He's silhouetted by moonlight streaming through the thin slit of a window,

Looking like a sainted gargoyle with unfinished business.

He doesn't say anything.

Of course he doesn't.

He just rises,

Bare feet silent on the stone floor,

And moves down the aisle like a shadow with a grudge.

The snoring continues.

Oblivious.

Innocent.

A crime of the unconscious.

You watch as Brother Thomas reaches the offender.

He doesn't shake him,

Doesn't speak.

Instead,

He lifts one hand and flicks the side of the snorer's head with the precision of a man who's done this many times.

Not hard.

Just enough to jolt a snort.

The man inhales sharply,

Mutters something that sounds like amen,

And rolls over.

Silence returns.

Brother Thomas walks back without triumph.

This was not vengeance.

It was maintenance.

You lie still for a long time after that.

You don't dare turn over.

You don't scratch.

You don't breathe too deeply.

The silence,

Now restored,

Seems even more sacred.

It's like the room is holding its breath and expects you to do the same.

And yet,

As the hours stretch on,

You realize something.

The silence isn't just fear.

It's comfort,

Too.

A kind of unity.

Dozens of men all agreeing,

Without a word,

To simply exist quietly,

To rest without interruption,

To suffer gently together.

Eventually,

You fall asleep.

And when you dream,

It's of something breaking the silence.

A bell,

Maybe.

Or a laugh.

But when you wake,

It's still quiet.

And you're still in the monastery.

And Brother Thomas is watching.

You don't remember falling asleep,

But something wakes you.

It isn't noise.

It's the absence of it.

The fire has died.

The last ember cracked out a while ago.

No one breathes loud.

No dog snoring.

No pig shifting.

Just cold,

Dark stillness,

So complete it feels unnatural.

Your eyes open,

But they don't help.

The room is blacker than anything you've ever slept in.

Not modern darkness,

Where screens blink and streetlights bleed in through windows.

This is the dark of old worlds,

Where the night itself feels alive.

You lie still.

You listen.

Somewhere in the room,

Someone mutters a prayer.

It's soft.

Repetitive.

A whisper to no one,

Or maybe to everything.

You don't know who it is,

But you can tell by the rhythm that they're afraid.

You are too,

Though you haven't decided of what yet.

Earlier,

You laughed when someone tucked a plate under the bench.

A little wooden dish with a crust of bread,

An egg,

And what might have once been an apple.

For the angels,

The woman said,

Not smiling,

Or the others.

She didn't elaborate.

You asked who the others were.

She didn't answer.

You thought it was quaint,

Sweet even,

Like a bedtime ritual from an old storybook.

Now in the dark,

That dish feels like insurance,

And you're painfully aware that you brought no offerings,

No charms,

No wards,

Just your blanket,

Your aching joints,

And the suspicion that you are not entirely alone in the room.

Someone shifts.

Not a human,

A presence.

You pull the blanket up to your chin,

Not because it's cold,

Because if something is moving in this room,

You'd rather it think you're already dead.

They say night belongs to things that don't belong anywhere else,

That while people sleep,

The other world wakes.

Spirits,

Saints,

Devils,

Things that slip in through cracks in walls and prayers left unfinished.

No one argues with this.

It's not a belief.

It's a rule.

Even the bravest man here won't whistle after sundown.

The stories vary.

A child once woke up with handprints on his cheeks and no memory of crying.

A midwife saw her dead sister's face in the hearth coals.

One man swears a fairy laid beside him every night for a week until he finally spoke her name aloud,

And she vanished,

Taking three of his teeth with her.

You don't believe all of it.

But you also haven't moved in ten minutes.

There's a draft,

But it doesn't touch your skin like normal air.

It moves around you,

Past you.

You feel it hesitate at your ear.

You try not to breathe.

The woman across the room is still muttering.

It's louder now.

A chant.

She sounds like she's trying to drown something out or warn it off.

You don't know which is worse.

You remember now.

They told you not to sleep with your feet facing the door.

You didn't listen.

You thought it was about etiquette or airflow,

But it wasn't.

It was about spirits.

It was about not giving them a straight path to drag you out if they came looking.

You turn your feet sideways under the blanket,

Just in case.

A floorboard creaks.

This house is old.

Everything creaks.

But not like that.

This creek was weighty,

Planted.

You freeze again.

There's a sound like breathing,

But it's not from a body.

It's from the room.

The entire room inhaling softly.

You want to say something.

Call out.

Just one name.

But your voice is gone,

Buried under every superstition you never used to care about.

You remember what else they said.

Don't open your eyes if you wake in the third hour.

Don't speak to anyone who whispers your name.

Don't answer the door even if you hear your mother's voice on the other side.

And if something sits on your chest,

Don't fight it.

Let it pass through.

You clutch your blanket tighter,

Fabric bunched under your nose.

You smell straw and sweat and a hint of old garlic,

Someone's necklace maybe,

A charm against demons.

You wish you had one.

You wish you had anything.

The plate on the floor shifts.

Just once.

A soft scrape.

You hear it.

So does the woman.

Her prayer stops abruptly.

Nothing else moves.

The silence returns.

But now it's wrong.

It's not empty.

It's expectant.

The kind of silence that waits to be broken.

And you don't want to be the one to break it.

You press your head into the mat.

You close your eyes.

You count slowly,

Even though you forget the order.

Numbers dissolve under fear.

All you know is you are still breathing,

Still here,

Still untouched.

Eventually,

Morning comes.

Dim and cold and full of the usual aches The room is as it was.

The others are waking.

No one mentions the night.

No one mentions the plate.

Now empty.

You don't ask.

You don't need to.

Because whatever passed through the room last night,

It left quietly.

And that's the best you can ever hope for.

You think you're asleep.

You're not.

Not really.

Somewhere in the distance,

A bell begins to toll,

Low and steady,

Cutting through the night like an old war drum.

It's not the kind of bell you hear and feel comforted by.

This one doesn't invite you to dream or rest.

It demands attention.

It pulls you from the edges of sleep and into a world where darkness feels sharp and breathless.

The bell tolls again and again.

Each clang carries the weight of the village's rhythm,

The unseen heartbeat of a community that refuses to pause even when the moon is high.

It's the sound that tells you the night is far from quiet and sleep is a fragile,

Fleeting thing.

You open your eyes to cold air slipping in through cracks in the wall.

Your breath forms a ghostly mist.

The fire has burned low.

The blankets are thin.

You feel every chill like a needle tracing your spine.

Outside,

The world is alive in ways you forgot existed,

Nocturnal and unforgiving.

There's another sound now,

A rooster crowing from the farmyard.

It's loud and insistent,

A wake-up call that has echoed for centuries.

But this isn't the gentle alarm clock you set on your bedside table.

This crow pierces the cold air,

Echoing off stone barns and thatched roofs,

Rattling windows and rattling nerves.

Then,

From the tavern down the road,

You hear laughter.

Raucous,

Slurred and dripping with too much ale.

Someone stumbles and curses loudly in the dark.

The village drunk is making his rounds,

A walking warning to the sober and the weary.

His footsteps thud heavy on the dirt path.

You try to ignore him,

But the sound bounces off the walls like a curse you can't shake.

If you think this is the worst of it,

You're wrong.

From the edge of the woods comes the distant howl of wolves.

Lonely and haunting,

It cuts through the night air like a knife.

The villagers don't talk about it much,

But everyone knows the stories.

Wolves aren't just animals here.

They're omens,

Spirits,

And sometimes something darker.

Their cries remind you that the night belongs to more than just humans.

Sleep is a battlefield.

You pull your cloak tighter around your shoulders and try to nestle back into the thin straw bed.

The cold bites,

But the sounds are worse.

Each clang of the bell,

Each rooster's crow,

Every drunken shout and distant howl slices through your attempts to drift away.

You count breaths,

Heartbeats,

Tries to find that fragile edge of unconsciousness,

But it keeps slipping away,

Pulled back by the relentless chorus outside your window.

The village bell tolls again,

Once,

Twice,

Three times.

Each strike seems to mark not just the hour,

But a command.

Wake.

Be alert.

Remember you are alive and vulnerable.

The rooster crows again,

Louder this time,

As if competing with the bell for dominance over the night.

You imagine it puffing out its chest,

Daring the wolf's howl to drown it out.

Neither succeeds.

From the tavern,

The drunk stumbles closer,

His voice now a mix of song and curses,

Hiccuping with abandon.

The scent of spilled ale drifts faintly through the open window.

You try not to breathe it in,

But it settles in your lungs anyway,

A reminder that life here is rough,

Unruly,

And never silent.

The wolves howl once more,

Nearer now.

Their cries seem to weave with the bell and the rooster,

Forming a strange,

Wild symphony of rural nightlife.

You lie awake,

Heart racing,

Mind-spinning stories about what prowls outside,

About what the bell calls you to remember.

It's not just time passing.

It's a warning.

The night is alive.

The cold is relentless.

And sleep?

Sleep is a prize,

Only the strongest claim.

Eventually,

The bell tolls fade into a steady rhythm,

The roosters crow slow,

And the tavern's drunken revelry moves away down the road.

The wolves retreat into the shadows,

Leaving behind only silence and cold.

But by then,

You are already wide awake.

You have met the night's chorus and found yourself lacking.

You get up,

Rub your stiff limbs,

And prepare for the long dawn,

Because in this village,

The day waits for no one,

Not even those brave enough to call sleep their refuge.

The rhythm of rural life is enforced not by clocks or calendars,

But by bells,

Roosters,

Drunks,

And wolves.

And if you think you can sleep through it,

Good luck.

You lie down,

Pulling the rough blanket up to your chin,

And immediately regret it.

The straw beneath you is uneven,

Poking at your ribs like a dozen tiny accusatory fingers.

Your neck aches,

Your back stiffens,

And your mind starts to wander toward all the ways this night will be longer than the last.

But then you remember the advice,

Whispered from weary lips,

Don't lie flat.

Not if you want to wake up.

It sounds absurd,

Dangerous even.

But in this world,

Where superstition and survival dance hand in hand,

It's gospel.

They say if you sleep lying flat,

Completely horizontal,

Like a corpse in a coffin,

God might mistake you for dead.

Not metaphorically.

Not spiritually.

Literally.

You become invisible to mercy,

Undetectable to divine breath.

Your soul could slip away,

Unnoticed,

Taken before its time.

The risk is too great.

So you prop yourself up,

Using whatever you can find.

A stack of rough pillows,

A wooden chest turned on its side,

A heap of old cloaks folded clumsily.

You arrange and rearrange,

Aiming for that precarious balance between uncomfortable and unbearable.

Because comfort is a luxury reserved for the dead or the foolish.

You lie back,

Your head tilted awkwardly,

Supported by lumpy cushions that threaten to collapse at any moment.

Your shoulders protest the unnatural posture and your legs,

Bent at odd angles,

Ache from blood rushing where it shouldn't.

Every muscle demands release,

But you hold still.

You remind yourself,

This is survival.

The room is cold,

Stone walls echoing the slightest sound.

You breathe in shallow bursts,

Wary of the rise and fall of your chest.

You imagine an invisible ledger where angels tally the living and the lost.

And you desperately want your name checked off the right column.

Monks,

Nobles,

Peasants,

They all swear by this practice.

It's not just superstition,

But discipline,

A nightly ritual as crucial as prayer or confession.

Some claim that by sleeping upright,

You not only avoid death,

But keep sin at bay.

Lying flat invites dark dreams,

Temptations,

And demonic visits.

Sitting or reclining keeps you alert,

Watchful even in rest.

You try to find peace in the awkwardness.

You close your eyes and count your breaths,

Focus on the rhythm of your heartbeat.

But your body betrays you with aches and twitches,

Reminding you that this is not rest,

It's endurance.

The night stretches.

Time slows.

Shadows creep along the walls,

Lengthening and shrinking like restless spirits.

You hear distant sounds,

Footsteps echoing,

A dog barking,

The faint toll of a bell far away.

Each noise jolts you,

Pulling you from the fragile edge of sleep.

You shift slightly,

Trying to ease the strain without tipping over.

Your neck cracks audibly,

A sharp reminder that comfort has been sacrificed for survival.

Around you,

Others sleep the same way.

Half sitting,

Half lying,

Each person contorted into a unique shape of discomfort.

There is solidarity in this shared struggle,

A silent agreement that death must be cheated,

Even if it means waking every hour with numb limbs and sore joints.

You wonder if God really can't tell when you breathe lying flat,

Or if it's just a story grown from fear and cold nights.

But it doesn't matter.

In a world where dying mid-dream is feared more than hunger or the plague,

Belief is its own protection.

Hours pass.

The first light of dawn begins to seep through the small window,

Casting pale beams across the stone floor.

Your muscles scream for relief,

But you hold your posture a moment longer.

You have survived,

For now.

As the morning prayers begin and the monastery stirs awake,

You slowly ease down,

Careful not to upset the balance you've fought to maintain.

The moment your head touches the pillow horizontally,

A strange mix of relief and anxiety washes over you.

You know you've cheated death,

At least for one night,

But the fear will return tonight and every night after,

Until you learn to sleep upright like the rest,

Propped between pillows and prayers,

Fighting to stay alive one breath at a time.

And so,

You carry the stiffness and the cold with you,

A small price to pay in a world where sleep is never just sleep,

And lying flat can mean lying still,

Forever.

The room smells faintly of sickness,

Not the sharp,

Sudden smell of fresh wounds or feverish sweat,

But a slow,

Creeping scent like damp earth and old regrets.

You lie in your bed,

The thin straw mattress beneath you rough and uneven,

The heavy wool blanket tangled around your legs.

Somewhere close,

A cough breaks the silence,

Dry,

Rattling,

Unrelenting,

A sound that twists your stomach and sets your nerves on edge.

You freeze,

Listening.

The cough echoes off the stone walls,

Bouncing between narrow beds lined up like silent sentinels in the dim light.

You know that cough.

It carries a weight,

A darkness heavier than the night itself.

It's the plague.

A man two beds over hasn't stirred in three days.

The skin visible beneath his threadbare shirt is pale,

Almost translucent,

And his breathing is shallow,

So shallow you wonder if he's still breathing at all.

The other occupants pretend not to notice.

They call it exhaustion,

The after-effects of too much labor or too little food.

They say he'll recover.

You want to believe it,

Too.

But you've heard the stories.

The sudden black swell on the skin,

The fever that burns like a furnace inside the body,

The delirium,

The sweat-soaked nightmares,

The strange spots that bloom like evil flowers on the skin,

The death that comes swift and terrible,

Leaving nothing behind but silence and an empty bed.

You pull your blanket up higher,

Seeking comfort where there is none.

Your hands are clammy,

Fingers clutching the threadbare fabric as if it could shield you from what lurks in the air.

The cough comes again,

Rougher this time,

And you turn your head away as though the sound might not find you if you don't meet its gaze.

At night,

The plague does not just ravage bodies.

It infects minds,

Spreading fear like wildfire.

You see it in the eyes of your neighbors,

The haunted looks,

The whispered prayers,

The furtive glances when no one is watching.

Everyone is waiting,

Waiting for the next person to fall silent,

For the bed beside them to grow cold and empty.

You wonder how many have already gone without anyone noticing.

How many bodies lie wrapped in crude shrouds behind locked doors,

Taken away in the dead of night by grim-faced men who say little and carry more.

How many funerals have passed with only the smallest crowd,

Too afraid to gather,

Too desperate to mourn.

The village is shrinking.

People vanish,

Swallowed by the plague or by fear.

The markets grow quiet.

The fields go untended.

The laughter fades into memories.

Even the animals seem to sense it,

Staying closer to home,

Avoiding the restless stir of a world unraveling.

You pray harder now,

Not just the usual prayers,

But frantic ones whispered into the darkness,

Begging for mercy,

For protection,

For a miracle.

You clutch a small wooden cross given to you by a priest before the sickness spread.

It's rough and splintered,

But it is yours,

A talisman against despair.

Sometimes you hear the monks chant in the chapel.

Their voices rise and fall like waves,

Carrying ancient psalms that speak of suffering and salvation.

You wonder if their prayers reach beyond the stone walls or if they circle back,

Swallowed by the cold air.

You catch yourself watching the village doctor as he moves from house to house,

His leather satchel heavy with herbs and tinctures that may or may not help.

He wears a mask,

An eerie beaked thing stuffed with flowers and spices,

Meant to protect him from the invisible enemy.

But you know the mask is as much a symbol as a shield.

He's just as afraid as the rest of you.

Back in the room,

The man next to you shifts.

You glimpse a fevered hand twitching in restless dreams,

A face contorted by pain and panic.

His breathing grows ragged and the cough erupts again,

More violent,

More desperate.

You squeeze your eyes shut,

Willing the sound to stop,

Willing him to find peace.

No one speaks of death openly,

But it hovers in the air like a dense fog.

Even the children sense it,

Their games fading into silence,

Their smiles brittle.

Mothers clutch their babies tighter,

Whispering promises they hope to keep.

You wonder how many nights like this you can endure,

How many mornings you can wake to the same coughing,

The same dread,

The same cold uncertainty.

How long before the sickness claims someone you love,

Someone you can't bear to lose?

The candle flickers,

Casting long shadows that dance on the walls like ghosts.

You pull the blanket over your head,

Shutting out the room,

The sounds,

The fear.

You pray for sleep,

For rest,

For a moment's peace from the plague's relentless grip.

But sleep is elusive.

Your mind races with questions and memories,

With the faces of those who have already left and those still fighting to stay.

You think of the prayers you recited as a child,

The lessons from the Church,

The promises whispered in the dark.

And you pray again,

For healing,

For strength,

For forgiveness,

For the courage to face whatever dawn may bring.

Because in these plague years,

Every breath is a gift,

Every heartbeat a victory,

And every prayer is a lifeline thrown into the darkness,

Hoping to pull you through the longest night of all.

You lie awake,

Eyes fixed on the rough ceiling above,

But sleep is nowhere to be found.

Your mind races,

But not with the worries of tomorrow or the day's burdens.

No.

This is different.

This is something deeper,

Darker,

Something that whispers from the edges of your thoughts like a shadow you can't shake.

Insomnia,

They say.

But here,

In this world,

Insomnia is never just a restless night.

It's a curse.

You didn't used to believe in curses.

You thought sleeplessness was caused by too much ale,

Too little food,

Or perhaps the chill in the air.

But now,

After nights like this,

When your body aches for rest and your mind won't grant it,

You begin to wonder.

Maybe it's not just the world's troubles.

Maybe it's something else,

Something you brought upon yourself.

The local wise woman told you once that sleeplessness is a punishment for sins unconfessed,

For grudges held too tightly,

For words spoken in anger that never found forgiveness.

She said it might be a hex cast by someone who wished you ill,

An enemy,

A jealous neighbor,

Or worse,

A restless spirit who clings to the living with bitter claws.

You clutch your stomach,

Recalling last night's supper,

A bit of cheese eaten too close to sunset.

The wise woman's eyes had narrowed at that.

Cheese is heavy on the blood,

She said.

Eats at the soul's peace.

Do not eat it past the sun's last bow.

You smile bitterly now.

If only your hunger had listened.

Sleep is an elusive treasure in this place.

When it won't come,

You seek remedies.

You think back to the bowl of herbs left at your door this morning,

Stinging nettle,

Valyrian root,

And a pinch of wormwood all wrapped in a faded linen cloth.

The scent was bitter and sharp,

Promising relief or at least distraction.

You brewed a tea from the herbs,

Sipping slowly under the flickering light of a tallow candle.

The bitterness clung to your tongue,

And you wondered if it was more punishment or promise.

The wise woman's voice echoed in your mind.

Drink deep,

But know that some curses cannot be drunk away.

Sometimes,

When the herbs fail,

More drastic measures are called for.

Full-body leeching is whispered about in hushed tones,

A method both feared and revered,

Bloodletting to draw out the toxins of sin and curse.

The leeches,

Small and black and hungry,

Are said to pull out more than just blood.

They extract the weight of restless nights,

The poison of sleepless spirits.

You haven't been brave enough to try.

The thought of cold,

Slimy creatures latched to your skin makes your flesh crawl.

But desperation has a way of changing courage into necessity.

The nights stretch on,

Each one longer and darker than the last.

You start to notice the signs.

Your skin feels thin,

As if the curse is scraping at your very flesh.

Your eyes burn from lack of rest.

Shadows seem to dance at the edges of your vision,

Teasing and taunting.

You wake with a start,

Certain you heard whispered words or footsteps in the empty room.

Neighbors tell stories of those cursed with insomnia,

How their eyes become glassy and wild,

How they talk to shadows that aren't there,

How they wander through the village at odd hours,

Chasing phantoms.

They say the cursed cannot pray properly,

Cannot eat,

Cannot rest.

They are trapped between worlds.

You clutch your small wooden cross tighter,

Mumbling prayers you barely remember.

You ask for mercy,

For the lifting of this night-long burden,

For a dawn that promises peace instead of torment.

Sometimes,

Just as you begin to lose hope,

A gentle warmth fills the room,

A breeze that carries the scent of rosemary and lavender,

Plants said to guard against evil and invite restful sleep.

You close your eyes and try to breathe with the calm that follows,

Hoping it's not just a trick of the mind.

You remember the last time you slept deeply,

The feeling of surrender,

The slow drift into dreams unburdened by fear.

It feels like a lifetime ago.

Now,

Sleep is a stranger,

A distant memory wrapped in fog and regret.

But you hold on to hope,

Because in this world,

Curses are not always permanent.

They can be broken by faith,

By ritual,

By the right combination of prayer and herbs and the willingness to face whatever dark force keeps you awake.

So you prepare yourself again.

You place fresh herbs under your pillow.

You chant quietly as the candle burns low.

You breathe slow and steady.

You tell yourself that tonight might be different,

That tonight the curse will loosen its grip and sleep will finally come.

And if it doesn't?

Well,

There's always tomorrow night and the night after that,

Because in a world where insomnia can be a curse,

Rest is the greatest blessing of all.

You collapse onto your mattress,

The kind with springs and a soft top layer that feels like clouds folded into fabric.

It's quiet here.

No creaking floorboards,

No distant coughs,

No snoring competitors in cramped beds mere inches away.

You close your eyes and sink into the luxury without even realizing how profound it is.

Because in the grand scheme of things,

What you're experiencing right now is nothing short of royal.

You might not wear a crown or rule lands,

But this sleep,

This soft uninterrupted rest is a privilege that kings and queens in the medieval world could only dream of.

And you?

You have it every single night.

Think about your walls.

They're solid,

Insulated.

They don't whisper with drafts or moan under the weight of cold wind.

In medieval times,

Most homes were stone or timber,

With gaps large enough to let in more than just air,

Rats,

Insects,

And the bitter bite of winter.

You,

However,

Live inside a fortress of warmth.

No howling wolves,

No chill creeping under the door.

Just the steady hum of central heating keeping you perfectly comfortable as you drift off.

Your mattress might feel ordinary to you,

But back then,

It was the stuff of legend.

A pile of soft feathers,

Carefully stitched linen,

Layers of padding made from rare and expensive materials.

Peasants had straw-filled sacks hard as a barn floor,

Often damp and crawling with pests.

Nobles fought over feather beds,

Passing them down like treasure,

The best kind of inheritance anyone could hope for.

And here you are,

Lying on memory foam or coils that cradle your body like a gentle hand.

Your blankets and sheets are pristine,

Clean,

Pest-free,

Not a flea,

Lice,

Or bed bug in sight.

Imagine sharing a bed where your nightly companions are not only your family,

But also an army of itching,

Biting insects,

Each one a tiny tyrant demanding blood and attention.

The luxury of fresh linens,

Washed and softened regularly,

Is something medieval folk could only dream of,

Or more likely,

Pay dearly for,

If they dared.

You don't have to wear layers of itchy wool or a nightcap to keep warm.

No need for garlic necklaces or strange herbal concoctions to ward off demons or pests.

You slip into pajamas made from soft cotton or silk,

Fabrics that wouldn't have existed in the medieval world outside the most lavish courts.

Even your pillow,

A fluffy cloud of feathers or synthetic fibers,

Is a rarity and a symbol of status and comfort beyond imagining for most people living centuries ago.

Your shower,

Too,

Is a royal indulgence.

Instead of a bucket of cold water or a dip in a communal bathhouse,

You have hot water at the turn of a tap.

The luxury of cleanliness,

Free from the grime and scent of unwashed bodies that clung to medieval sleepers,

Is something to savor.

Baths were rare,

And soap was sometimes made from harsh or questionable ingredients.

Hygiene wasn't just difficult,

It was a privilege.

Even the silence that cradles your sleep is royal.

No church bells tolling at ungodly hours.

No drunken tavern brawls echoing through stone streets.

No wolves howling on the edge of town.

No pigs snuffling beside you or chickens crowing at dawn.

Just peace.

The kind of peace that kings might have envied,

Locked away in their cold castles.

You have access to medicine if you need it,

Rather than prayers or herbs alone.

You can call for help if illness strikes,

Instead of hoping your neighbor's leeches do the trick.

Your nights aren't punctuated by the fear of pestilence,

Nor haunted by ghosts and curses.

Your dreams aren't weighed down by guilt or superstition.

In the grand tapestry of human history,

Your sleep is a triumph,

A victory of innovation,

Comfort,

And safety.

You might take it for granted but it's the culmination of centuries of struggle,

Ingenuity,

And change.

The comforts you enjoy were once the stuff of fantasy or privilege limited to the halls of nobility and clergy.

So as you lay back,

Breathing deep,

Sinking into the softness and warmth,

Remember this.

Every night,

You fall asleep without fear,

Without itch,

Without cold or noise.

You're living a kind of royalty.

You rest on a throne woven from history,

Fortune,

And progress.

You have won a battle many never fought and lost.

And tomorrow night,

When you pull those clean sheets over your head and close your eyes,

You can sleep easy because in this moment,

Right now,

You are royalty.

You just don't know it yet.

You made it through the night.

No fleas crawling,

No church bells tolling,

No chickens squawking at dawn,

And definitely no unexpected elbows from Brother Ambrose jabbing you awake.

Rest easy.

This kind of sleep is a rare gift,

And tonight it's yours.

Hey guys.

Tonight's story begins with a missing blanket,

A mattress that crunches when you breathe,

And a goat staring at you like it knows your sins.

The room is packed shoulder to shoulder.

Siblings,

Cousins,

Somebody's emotional support goose,

And the air smells like old wool,

Onions,

And faint disappointment.

The fire has gone out,

The draft has found your toes,

And every time you close your eyes,

Somebody farts like it's a family tradition.

You'd complain,

But it's the 14th century.

This is normal.

This is bedtime.

Now get comfortable.

Let the day melt away,

And we'll drift back together into the quiet corners of the past.

You try to sleep,

But your blanket is currently being used as a door,

Or a tablecloth,

Or possibly a goat saddle.

It's hard to be sure,

Because it hasn't actually been in your possession since Tuesday,

And no one in the house will admit to having seen it.

Your aunt claims it blew away.

Your cousin suggests it transformed into a cloud out of shame.

The baby,

Who cannot talk,

Simply smiles and drools in a way that feels accusatory.

You've checked the hearth,

The hay pile,

The cupboard that smells like regret,

And the rafter where your uncle once lost a chicken.

No blanket,

Just splinters and dust and the distinct feeling of betrayal.

Your bed,

And you use that word in the loosest possible sense,

Consists of a wooden frame,

Three squeaky ropes,

And something that may have once been a sack of straw,

But now resembles an exasperated pancake.

The pillow is a folded tunic stuffed with lint,

Time,

And crushed dreams.

You lie on your side,

Then your back,

Then your side again,

Which makes the straw audibly complain,

And your hip press into the wood like it's personally offended by your skeleton.

You try to curl into warmth,

But warmth has curled away and is currently snoring loudly from your brother's side of the mattress.

He has the blanket.

The blanket you have legally,

Spiritually,

And historically agreed belongs to both of you.

He has taken it all.

He is cocooned like a smug medieval caterpillar,

And you are left to contemplate the fabric of fairness while rubbing your arms for heat.

You poke him once,

Gently.

He sighs dramatically and turns away.

You poke again.

He groans,

Adjusts,

And tucks the edge further under his chin,

Sealing the blanket like a tomb.

You consider your options.

Option one,

Freeze to death.

Option two,

Create a scandal.

You go with option three,

Which involves inching closer and trying to borrow a corner without awakening the beast.

It doesn't work.

He growls something incoherent,

Possibly a curse,

Possibly a prayer.

You retreat two inches and pretend you were just checking if he was still breathing.

He always breathes loud enough to echo off the beams,

But this doesn't stop you from pretending.

After a moment,

You hear your mother's voice from across the room.

If either of you wakes the baby,

I will tan your hide and sell it to the tanner.

The baby,

Who is currently snoring with the enthusiasm of a drunken squirrel,

Shifts in its cradle,

Made from a drawer and a questionable piece of cloth.

You go still.

Eventually,

Your mother's breathing evens out again and the night resumes its usual sounds.

Wind against the shutters,

Rats under the floorboards,

Debating theology,

And the faint gurgle of something fermenting in a jar no one will admit to owning.

You lie back,

Arms crossed over your chest like a corpse,

Waiting for judgment.

Someone farts.

Not you.

Hopefully.

A gust of cold slips through the thatch in the ceiling and lands directly on your face.

You gasp.

Your brother shifts again.

You want to punch him.

Not hard.

Just enough to transfer the existential chill currently wrapped around your soul.

Instead,

You grab the corner of your own tunic and try to pull it over your knees.

It reaches your thighs.

Barely.

Your feet are already numb,

Which is probably a blessing.

The blanket,

To be fair,

Wasn't always this contested.

It used to be larger back when it was whole.

But time,

Moths,

And the incident with the candle during Lent have reduced it to the size and texture of an ambitious rag.

Your mother tried to mend it.

Once,

By sewing another piece of cloth to one end.

Unfortunately,

The only available material was an old potato sack,

Which now makes the blanket smell faintly of stew and failure.

Still,

It was warm,

Or at least warmer than the alternative,

Which is nothing.

Your sister,

Curled up near the fire with the smugness of someone who claimed she was ill just to get a warmer sleeping spot,

Sighs in her sleep and shifts her feet dangerously close to the coals.

You watch for a moment,

Torn between concern and envy.

She mumbles something that might be a love confession or a bread order.

You wonder what she's dreaming of.

Hopefully warmth.

Hopefully giving you the blanket.

A thump echoes from the rafters above.

You freeze.

Everyone freezes.

Even your brother,

Burritoed in betrayal,

Stops snoring.

The thump happens again.

Probably a cat.

Hopefully a cat.

Possibly an omen.

You remember last time it wasn't a cat,

And the priest had to come by with a handful of dried herbs and a very long story about spirits that never quite explained why the goat was in the chimney.

Eventually,

The silence thickens again,

Heavy and damp.

You stare at the ceiling,

Where the shadows make vague promises of rest that never arrive.

You think about that one time the merchant came through with furs from the north and a noble woman passed by,

Wrapped in something soft and impossible.

She looked warm.

She also looked like she'd never been farted on by a sibling in the middle of the night.

You wonder if that's what heaven feels like.

Quiet,

Soft,

Private.

The opposite of this.

You roll to your other side and accidentally dislodge a twig embedded in the straw mattress.

It pokes your spine in a way that makes your eyes water and your ancestors weep.

The wind whistles again.

Colder now.

Your brother snorts and rolls,

Dragging the last visible thread of blanket with him.

You mutter a curse that would get you smacked if said aloud.

Then,

In the darkness,

A miracle.

The baby gurgles,

Hiccups,

And spits up with the enthusiasm of someone trying to end a truce.

Your mother groans.

The entire house shifts in protest.

In the flurry of movement and whispered panic,

Your brother rolls the wrong way.

The blanket slips,

Ever so slightly,

Onto your side.

You pounce,

Silent,

Swift,

The execution of a seasoned survivor.

You clutch the edge,

Fold it over your knees,

Curl it around your shoulders,

And pretend to be asleep before he notices.

He shifts.

He grumbles.

But he does not reclaim it.

Victory,

Sweet and lumpy,

Is yours.

You fall asleep thirty seconds later,

Clutching half a blanket that smells like smoke and onions and regret.

And it is the best sleep you've had all week.

You wake up halfway through the night,

On purpose,

Because apparently that's the thing now.

They call it the watch,

Or vigilia,

Or the sacred hour of staring at the ceiling while pretending to pray.

You call it the hour where dreams are rudely interrupted by tradition and a bladder that can't hold its liquor.

Outside,

The village is still as a cat pretending not to plan something.

Inside,

Everything is cold and lumpy and smells like old wool and foot.

Your legs are tangled in a tunic.

Your head is pressed against something suspiciously squashy.

And your soul feels personally insulted by the air.

You light a candle.

You don't know why.

It's not for warmth.

It's not for light,

Since there's nothing to read unless you're into mouse droppings and wall smudges.

But everyone lights a candle.

It's part of the ritual,

A flickering flame to honor your participation in the world's least relaxing midnight club.

You sit up slowly,

The way a sack of oats might if it suddenly developed vertebrae.

Your joints pop like kernels in a pan.

Your breath fogs in the air.

Someone,

Possibly you,

Groans.

Around the room,

Other bodies stir.

Some grumble.

Some cough.

One lets out a snore that turns into a burp that turns into an apology.

You glance toward the hearth,

Where the last of the embers glow like angry beetles.

Your aunt is already there,

Wrapped in a shawl and muttering to herself,

While poking something in a pot that smells like boiled dread.

The baby on her back is wide-eyed and suspicious,

Which is fair,

Considering he's already lived through three near-drownings in a basin and a goat that tried to adopt him.

You slip out from the bed without disturbing the others,

A process that requires the agility of a cat burglar and the moral flexibility of someone who doesn't mind stepping on a cousin.

Your feet find the floor.

The floor does not appreciate this.

It greets you with the subtle joy of winter stone,

Shocking,

Unforgiving,

And slightly damp.

You shuffle to your corner of the room where someone's boots used to be.

They're not there now.

Nothing is where it should be.

The watch,

They say,

Is a time of reflection,

A sacred pause between first sleep and second sleep,

Where your soul is supposed to whisper secrets to the Divine.

Mostly,

Your soul whispers complaints and questions,

Like why are the chickens talking?

You hear them outside,

Muttering in low clucks like they're planning a heist.

You tell yourself to ignore it,

But you listen anyway.

One cluck sounds accusatory.

You crouch near the window,

The one that only opens when you don't want it to.

The sky is heavy with stars and that kind of moonlight that makes everything look slightly haunted.

You spot your neighbor out by the well,

Her candle bobbing like a firefly with a purpose.

She's probably praying or gossiping with the other watchwomen,

Which is the same thing with different posture.

You wave.

She doesn't wave back.

You decide that means she didn't see you and not that she's still mad about the lentils.

Behind you,

Someone stirs.

Your brother,

Still wrapped in the sacred blanket from earlier,

Yawns like a dying goose and farts without remorse.

He opens one eye.

What time is it?

He mumbles.

Half night,

You reply.

The sacred time.

He groans and rolls over,

Pressing his face into the straw with the energy of someone done with all of this.

You envy him.

Briefly,

But you've already lit the candle.

There's no turning back.

You busy yourself with the only real activity permitted during the watch,

Existing.

You tend the fire,

Which resents you.

You rearrange the turnips in the corner because it feels vaguely productive.

You check to make sure the door is still barred,

Even though if someone wanted to rob you,

They'd have to be spectacularly bad at economics.

Then you sit,

Candle flickering beside you,

And pretend to think deep thoughts.

Mostly,

You think about bread and feet and how the corner of the room might be haunted by the ghost of your uncle's bad decisions.

You remember the priest once said this hour was for spiritual clarity,

A window into the quiet voice of God.

You mostly hear the dog licking itself in the next room and someone snoring like a wood saw with asthma.

Eventually,

You begin to nod off again.

This is dangerous territory.

You are not yet in second sleep.

You are in the between place,

The threshold of slumber,

Where dreams slink in like stray cats and sometimes bite.

You fight it.

You lose.

You dream of cabbage.

Then you wake yourself up by sneezing directly into your own shirt.

The candle flickers in judgment.

Outside,

The chickens fall silent.

This is somehow worse.

You glance at the hearth again.

Your aunt is gone.

So is the pot.

The baby remains,

Snoring faintly in a bundle that looks like someone gave up halfway through folding laundry.

The room is darkening.

Your candle is burning low.

It's wax forming a small sad pond on the windowsill.

You lean your head against the wall and tell yourself it's only for a moment,

Just until the watch ends.

But the watch doesn't end.

It simply slips away,

Unnoticed.

One moment,

You are contemplating the meaning of a wet sock.

The next,

It is morning,

And someone is yelling that the bread has fallen into the ash again.

Your candle has burned out.

Your feet are colder than before.

Your blanket is gone.

Again,

Second sleep,

As usual,

Has failed to deliver on its promises.

You feel unrested,

Mildly betrayed,

And vaguely wiser.

The rooster lets out a strangled sound that might be a crow or might be a laugh.

You sit up,

Rub your face,

And prepare for another day in a world that insists waking up twice in the middle of the night is perfectly normal.

You tell yourself it's tradition.

You tell yourself it's sacred.

You tell yourself one day,

People will look back on this and say,

How curious,

How quaint.

You tell yourself many things,

But mostly,

You just want your blanket back.

In a bed,

If you're lucky.

In hay,

If you're not.

In the pantry,

If you've annoyed your wife.

The rules are loose and change depending on mood,

Weather,

And whether or not someone spilled broth on the mattress again.

You have,

Historically,

Slept in most places that could be described with a noun.

You've slept on benches,

Under benches,

And once,

Disastrously,

On a wheelbarrow.

You've slept upright against a wall with a ladle for a pillow.

You've slept curled in the nook between the hearth and a bag of onions,

Both of which were warmer than your sister-in-law's attitude that week.

Tonight,

Your options are limited.

The bed is occupied by your wife,

Two children,

Your wife's mother,

And an emotional support goose who refuses to sleep anywhere without touching someone's foot.

You tried sliding in earlier,

But the goose hissed and the baby bit your ear,

So you retreated with dignity,

Or at least the kind of reluctant silence that passes for it.

You're now standing in the dark,

Holding a folded tunic and a piece of wood you're pretending is a pillow,

Scouting for a patch of floor that doesn't crunch or squish when stepped on.

The fire pit is still warm,

And you eye the spot near it with cautious hope.

It's partially sheltered from the draft and only slightly smells like singed meat,

But it's also suspiciously lumpy.

You prod it with your foot.

It growls.

You back away and mutter a quiet apology to the dog,

Who opens one eye,

Yawns in contempt,

And rolls over with the smugness of someone who has never paid rent but still gets the best real estate.

You shift your attention to the corner near the piglet crate.

There's hay,

Which is promising,

And only a faint hint of manure.

You shuffle over,

Shake out the tunic,

And lower yourself down like a sack of flour hoping not to burst.

The hay pokes through your clothes like it's personally offended by your presence,

And something under your hip squishes in a way that suggests it once had a soul.

You freeze.

The piglet in the crate lets out a sigh,

Then settles back into sleep.

You tell yourself the noise was just old hay.

You do not believe yourself,

But you accept the lie because it is late and you are tired and you cannot handle one more revelation about what's living in the floor.

You curl up as tightly as your knees and pride will allow.

Tuck the tunic around your shoulders and try to convince your brain that this is comfortable,

That this is rest,

That this is not the beginning of a very itchy illness.

Above you,

The rafters creak with the exaggerated groaning of wood pretending to be haunted.

The wind finds its way through a chink in the wall and sighs dramatically across your face,

Carrying with it the unmistakable scent of sheep and burned stew.

Someone snores.

Someone else coughs.

The piglet farts and looks pleased with itself.

You close your eyes then someone trips over you.

It's your cousin,

Barefoot and vaguely damp,

Carrying a chamber pot and no sense of spatial awareness.

He mutters a curse,

Steps directly on your hand and continues on without further explanation.

You make a noise somewhere between a yelp and a declaration of war.

He does not apologize.

You consider hexing him but you don't know how and also your hand hurts too much to gesture dramatically.

You settle instead for cursing him in your heart,

Which you do with gusto.

Your new sleeping spot is ruined now,

Psychologically if not physically.

You rise,

Brush off what may be beetles and wander to the pantry.

It's dark and cool and vaguely smells of onions and moral decay.

The floor is dry.

The shelves are mostly empty except for a single shriveled carrot and something that might once have been cheese but has now evolved into a separate belief system.

You nestle into the corner,

Head against a sack of something too soft to be trustworthy and finally,

Finally begin to drift.

Then,

The door creaks open.

Your wife appears,

Candle in hand,

Eyes narrowed like a saint betrayed.

Why are you in the pantry?

She whispers in a tone that implies you've committed tax fraud.

You consider your answer.

The goose bit me.

Your cousin stepped on me.

The piglet has an aggressive aura.

None of them feel adequate.

You shrug.

You looked comfortable.

You whisper back.

She stares at you.

You stare at her.

She sighs,

Sets the candle down and shuffles away.

You hear her mutter something about poor choices and ancestral shame.

You consider following her.

You stay put.

The pantry is cold,

But it does not bite.

Eventually,

The candle burns low.

The house settles into its usual symphony of nocturnal suffering.

The roof leaks rhythmically into a bucket someone placed without explanation.

A mouse rummages through a forgotten sack with the confidence of a seasoned thief.

Somewhere,

Someone is humming.

You don't know who.

You don't ask.

You fall asleep in the pantry,

Wrapped in your tunic,

Surrounded by pickled things and secrets.

It is not luxurious.

It is not even tolerable.

But it is yours.

For now.

You dream of beds,

Of warm feathers and linen sheets and mattresses that don't poke you in the spleen.

You dream of doors that lock in rooms without livestock and floors that understand the basic principles of comfort.

You dream of silence.

You wake up with a shelf imprint on your face and a raisin in your ear.

The sun is rising.

The house is stirring.

The piglet is already yelling.

You roll onto your side and groan like the floorboards,

Long and low and vaguely judgmental.

You stretch your arms,

Feel every ache,

And remind yourself that where you sleep is less about choice and more about negotiation and that tonight you will try again.

Perhaps under the table.

Perhaps in the shed.

Perhaps if the stars align and the goose forgets her vendetta,

Even in the bed,

But probably not.

Just as you drift off.

Just as your brain finally begins to pack up its worries and tiptoe toward unconsciousness like a weary bard seeking a break.

Gertrude the cow begins what can only be described as a midnight opera.

There is chewing,

Yes,

But also a sort of melodic bellowing that vibrates through the walls and into your molars.

You bolt upright.

Certain someone is playing a horn directly inside your chest.

It's only Gertrude.

Again.

You can hear her in the lean-to out back,

Muttering and mooing like she's rehearsing for a one-woman show titled The Grass Was Better Last Week and I Blame You Personally.

She's chewing something,

Possibly your sock,

Possibly her own lingering resentment for the way you looked at her on Michaelmas.

You'd like to believe it's just cud,

But you've seen that glint in her eye before.

That is a cow with a grudge,

A cow who remembers,

A cow who knows exactly how thin the wall is between your dreams and her opinions.

You lie back down,

Staring at the ceiling through the haze of candle smoke and ill intent and try to ignore the rhythmic wet crunch that echoes through the night like some druidic percussion meant to summon demons of fatigue.

Gertrude pauses.

For one glorious moment,

There is silence.

Then she moos,

Long,

Low,

Layered with the sorrow of a thousand unmilked mornings.

It is the kind of moo that makes your soul consider moving out.

The piglet,

Not to be outdone,

Stirs in its crate and releases a squeal so high-pitched it causes the rooster to scream from inside his crate.

Despite it being a full four hours before his scheduled terrorizing of the village,

You hear your brother groan.

You hear your mother mutter something unholy and roll over.

Someone kicks the wall,

Either in anger or as an offering to the cow gods.

None of it helps.

Gertrude continues her sonata with the gusto of an animal who has never been told no and wouldn't listen if she had.

You consider going out there,

Standing face-to-snout with her,

Demanding peace.

But the last time you tried,

She licked your arm,

Knocked over a bucket,

And gave you a look that suggested you were somehow the inconvenience.

The goose laughed or honked,

But it sounded smug and the emotional damage has yet to heal.

You roll onto your stomach and bury your face in the straw,

Which immediately pokes you in seventeen different moral centers.

You try again,

Curling your arms around your head like a human pillow fort.

It helps,

Slightly,

Until Gertrude kicks something,

Presumably the wall or maybe her own feelings.

You try to hum to yourself.

You try to think of calm things,

Clouds,

Bread,

A life without livestock.

But the chewing continues,

Slow and deliberate,

Like a cow-shaped metronome ticking through your last remaining threads of patience.

Eventually,

Your wife stirs.

She sits up,

Rubs her eyes and whispers,

Is that the cow again?

You nod from beneath your straw nest.

She sighs with the weight of someone who has born four children,

One goat incident,

And an entire marriage with you.

Do you want me to go out there?

She asks,

Not because she wants to,

But because she's better at life than you are.

You shake your head.

She'll win,

You whisper.

Your wife flops back down with the grace of a dropped sack of laundry and is asleep again in seconds because she has developed the supernatural ability to ignore farm animals,

Children,

And mild earthquakes if it means gaining ten more minutes of sleep.

You envy her,

Deeply.

The wind picks up outside.

It whistles through the thatch with the tone of a passive-aggressive flute.

A loose shutter rattles.

Something crashes in the barn.

Maybe a bucket.

Maybe a ghost.

You hear Gertrude grunt in approval as though chaos itself nourishes her.

A rat scurries across the beam above your head and knocks loose a small clod of something you pray is not ancient ceiling.

You get up.

You don't decide to get up.

You simply find yourself upright,

Pulled from your straw by an invisible thread made of sleeplessness and quiet desperation.

You shuffle toward the door,

Wrapping yourself in a shawl that smells like cabbage and consequences.

You unlatch the heavy wooden bolt.

The door creaks open with the drama of a stage curtain,

And cold air slaps you full in the face.

Gertrude stands there,

Large,

Moist,

And unconcerned.

She blinks at you.

You blink back.

She chews.

You're very loud.

You tell her.

She chews.

You woke the baby.

She exhales through her nostrils with the force of a sneeze and the judgment of a grandmother.

You take a step closer.

Please,

You say.

It's not even cockcrow.

She flicks her ear.

You realize she is chewing on what might be your other boot.

She stares at you with the calm,

Inscrutable menace of a beast who knows she provides milk and therefore cannot be stopped.

You try to take the boot.

She does not let you.

Eventually,

You pat her side awkwardly and retreat,

Unsure whether you've asserted dominance or just participated in some bizarre midnight bonding ritual.

You close the door,

Latch it,

And return to your patch of straw,

Which now feels colder and more judgmental than before.

You pull your tunic tighter and try once again to trick your body into believing rest is possible.

Gertrude is quieter now,

Not silent,

Just chewing more thoughtfully.

You drift in and out,

Not quite awake,

Not quite asleep.

In your dreams,

Cows wear crowns and laugh at you from thrones made of churned butter.

The rooster whispers threats in Latin.

The goose gets elected mayor.

You wake in a sweat,

Unsure what's real.

The sky begins to pale.

The watch is over.

The piglet squeals.

The rooster yells.

Your wife begins to stir,

And the baby kicks you in the ribs with military precision.

You lie there,

Blinking at the beams above your head,

And accept that rest and dignity are no longer related.

They haven't been for a long time.

You hear Gertrude,

Still chewing,

Still victorious.

You share a bed with your spouse,

Your three children,

Your spouse's cousin,

And a loaf of bread no one moved.

It is unclear who the bread belongs to,

And no one wants to claim it,

Lest they be held responsible for the crumbs that now form a fine layer across everyone's calves.

The bed itself is more of a suggestion,

A wooden frame with some straw,

Two flattened bolsters,

And a sense of betrayal.

The blanket is barely wide enough for dignity,

Let alone coverage,

And the children,

Like tiny,

Remorseless squirrels,

Have cocooned themselves in its folds while the rest of you suffer in exposed silence.

Someone snores,

Not the occasional wheeze of a weary nose,

But a full-throated,

Soul-rattling bellow that echoes off the walls and makes you briefly wonder if the roof is going to collapse from the vibrations.

Someone else kicks in time with it,

As if orchestrating an avant-garde dance inspired by regret.

You try to guess who it is without moving,

But the blanket rustles when you breathe,

And any attempt to shift your weight results in a cascade of passive-aggressive sighs.

You lie there,

Stiff as a board and twice as cold,

Pressed between your cuisine-in-law's shoulder and your child's questionable foot.

The foot is damp.

There is no reason for it to be damp,

But here it is,

Clinging to your thigh like a tiny,

Determined octopus.

You peel it off gently and try to reposition yourself,

But in doing so,

Your elbow grazes the edge of the bread,

Which has now taken on the texture of both pillow and weapon.

You push it toward the edge of the bed and immediately hear a disapproving grunt.

The bread has an advocate.

You contemplate murder,

Not seriously,

Just the kind of soft,

Dreamlike imagining where you tiptoe out into the night with a sack,

Come back with a goat,

And build a new life,

Three fields over,

Where everyone sleeps alone and no one snores in Latin.

You fantasize about silence,

About personal space,

About a bed so big you can stretch out your limbs and not accidentally touch someone's mouth.

That happened once.

You haven't been the same since.

The baby stirs.

He doesn't cry.

He simply sighs in that way babies do when they're about to make a series of irreversible decisions.

You feel him wriggle,

Then rotate,

Then wedge himself between you and your spouse with the force of a particularly determined turnip.

He settles.

For now,

You try to exhale quietly,

But your breath hits someone's hair,

And now you're both inhaling the same air.

Locked in a respiratory duel,

Neither of you will win.

Your spouse rolls over,

Or tries to.

They only manage a quarter turn before encountering the cousin,

The baby,

And the bread,

Which seems to have become a permanent resident.

They grunt and return to their original position,

But not before elbowing you gently in the ribs,

Which you interpret as both an apology and a reminder that this is your life now.

You stare at the ceiling.

It stares back.

There's a cobweb above your head that's grown significantly since yesterday,

And you briefly consider naming the spider.

You've shared more calm,

Consistent time with it than most of your relatives.

Its web sways in the draft,

A soft,

Silken metaphor for the tangled nonsense of your sleeping arrangement.

At the foot of the bed,

The eldest child begins talking in their sleep.

It's mostly muttering,

But at one point you catch the phrase chicken boots and make a mental note to ask questions in the morning.

Then someone,

Possibly the cousin,

Possibly the baby,

Lets out a long,

Dreamlike sigh and flips over,

Dragging half the blanket with them.

You reach to reclaim it and receive a foot to the chin.

Not malicious,

Just firm.

You rise,

Not dramatically,

Not even decisively.

You simply float upward in that slow,

Haunted way people do when they've stopped arguing with reality.

You tiptoe past the bed,

Over the snoring dog,

Around the sleeping goat.

You don't know why it's inside tonight.

No one ever tells you anything.

And toward the door,

The floor creaks,

Announcing your retreat to anyone who might care.

No one does.

Outside,

The night is quiet in that sarcastic way that suggests it knows how things are supposed to be.

The stars twinkle with smug indifference.

The air is cold,

The kind that bites your nose and makes your breath look dramatic.

You stand there,

Wrapped in a shawl made from old regrets and slightly damp wool,

And consider the barn.

The barn doesn't snore.

It doesn't kick.

It doesn't eat the blanket or insist on cuddling despite being 95 degrees and entirely made of elbows.

The barn is full of hay and secrets and that warm,

Dusty smell that clings to your clothes but comforts your bones.

You head toward it slowly,

Quietly,

Like someone slipping out on a bad date and into a slightly better one with a cow.

You nestle into a pile of straw in the far corner,

Away from the chicken roost and anything that looks like it might bite.

It's prickly.

It's uneven.

It smells like livestock and questionable decisions,

But it's yours,

All yours.

You lie down.

You exhale.

No one is touching you.

Nothing is damp.

No one is sleep-talking about poultry footwear.

You drift off,

And then the rooster starts,

Early,

Loud,

Right next to your head.

You open one eye.

You consider your life.

You consider the bed.

You consider the fact that even here,

In the quiet refuge of straw and solitude,

Someone,

Or something,

Is determined to ruin it.

You stare at the rooster.

He stares back.

You lie down again.

Maybe if you're very still,

He'll think you're dead.

Maybe if you close your eyes,

You'll wake up in a different century,

One with pillows,

But you won't.

You'll wake up in the same house,

With the same people,

In the same bed that isn't a bed,

But a test of endurance.

And when you do,

The bread will still be there,

Probably even closer,

Watching,

Waiting,

Crumbling softly into your life.

You dream of a chair,

Not just any chair,

But a grand,

Towering thing with sturdy legs and a backrest so supportive it borders on spiritual.

In the dream,

You are seated,

Upright,

Elevated.

No one is touching you.

No one is breathing against your neck,

Chewing in their sleep,

Or trying to steal the blanket with a foot.

You are alone,

Fully alone,

And the chair cradles you,

Like a loving God who knows lumbar support.

Your hands rest gently on wooden arms,

And in your lap,

A cushion,

An actual cushion,

Plump and soft and not full of barley or regret.

It smells faintly of beeswax and possibility.

The air is still.

The room is quiet.

There are no goats.

You don't know how to explain it,

But the absence of goats feels important.

You look down and realize you are covered with a clean woolen shawl,

One that hasn't been used to carry onions or mop up ale.

Your feet are up,

Gently resting on a stool made specifically for feet,

Not repurposed from some unfortunate child's toy or a broken butter churn.

There is a cup of something warm beside you.

It might be milk.

It might be magic.

Either way,

It is hot,

And it is yours,

And no one is asking if they can just have a sip.

You sit there in perfect silence for what feels like a lifetime,

And then,

You wake up crying,

Not loudly,

Just the quiet,

Resigned tears of someone who has just been evicted from paradise and returned to a reality where sitting furniture is less of a household item and more of a myth passed down by the elderly.

You're lying on your side,

Curled into a position best described as crumpled tax receipt,

With your neck at a sharp angle against a sack of something aggressively lumpy.

The baby is draped across your torso like an inconvenient cape.

Your arm is asleep.

You are not.

You inhale the scent of straw,

Damp wool,

And someone's leftover breath.

You blink into the predawn darkness and attempt to convince yourself that the dream wasn't that good,

That it was silly,

That chairs are overrated.

You fail.

You try to shift positions without waking the baby,

Which is like trying to rearrange furniture during an earthquake without upsetting the chandelier.

The baby grunts and clamps down with the strength of a barnacle.

You freeze,

Mid-wiggle,

And accept your fate.

You're not going anywhere.

Not until someone else wakes up and takes responsibility for this human blanket with feet.

Somewhere nearby,

Someone coughs.

Then the cough turns into a series of dramatic throat clearings,

Followed by a loud sigh that somehow communicates both martyrdom and indigestion.

It's probably your cousin again,

The one who once ate half a candle because he thought it was cheese and has been blaming the resulting constitution ever since.

You listen as he shifts,

Groans,

And proceeds to snore with renewed vigor.

You hope he never dreams of a chair.

You hope his dreams are full of splinters and squeaky stools.

You close your eyes,

Willing the chair to come back.

You try to remember its exact shape,

The smooth curve of the armrests,

The way the seat didn't sag or smell like wet root vegetables.

You cling to the memory like it's a precious relic,

A sacred vision.

You briefly wonder if chairs are a form of heresy.

That would explain why no one has one.

Perhaps the church banned them.

Perhaps there was a crusade.

You wouldn't be surprised.

After a while,

The baby slides off of you with the grace of a pudding and rolls toward the center of the sleeping heap.

You take this opportunity to sit up slowly,

Spine clicking like an old door hinge.

Your hips protest.

Your shoulders mutter something obscene.

You wrap your arms around your knees and rock slightly,

Like a man trying to comfort himself without being obvious about it.

You glance around the room.

The bread is still in the bed.

Your wife is snoring softly,

One hand cradling the smallest child like a loaf of emotional support.

The cousin is tangled in the blanket like a human pretzel.

Someone is drooling on the floor.

You rise,

Quietly,

And tiptoe across the room.

Your feet make soft crunching noises on the straw-covered floor,

And you try not to think about what you're stepping on.

You go outside.

The cold hits your face like a wet slap.

You breathe it in anyway,

Glad for the way it numbs everything.

The stars are out,

Smug and twinkly,

And the moon hovers just above the tree line like it's watching you specifically.

You look up at it and whisper,

There was a chair.

The moon says nothing.

Typical.

You walk toward the edge of the property,

Past the pigpen,

Past the cart missing one wheel,

Past the fence that doesn't really fence anything in.

You reach the stump,

The old one,

The one that kind of,

If you squint,

Looks like it could be sat on.

You brush off the top,

Ignoring the beetle that scurries away like it's offended by your intrusion,

And lower yourself down onto the hard,

Uneven surface.

It is not comfortable.

It is not supportive.

It is,

Technically,

Just a piece of dead tree.

But it is a place to sit.

And in this moment,

It's enough.

You close your eyes and pretend it has a backrest.

You imagine the cup of warm milk in your hand.

You imagine a cushion that hasn't been chewed on by anything with hooves.

You let your mind drift,

Not quite dreaming,

Not quite awake,

Sitting on a stump and mourning the existence of furniture you'll likely never have.

The rooster crows.

Loudly.

Right behind you.

You do not jump.

You are past jumping.

You simply sigh and stand and stretch your back like a man three decades older than he should be.

You pat the stump gently,

Like a goodbye,

Like a thank you.

You head back toward the house,

Where warmth awaits,

And snoring,

And probably another wet foot in the face.

But as you walk,

You whisper to yourself,

There was a chair,

And in your heart,

You believe.

You drew fire duty.

Again.

Which is odd,

Considering there are six other people in the house,

And at least two of them are awake enough to complain about dinner,

Which should qualify them for shifts.

But no.

It's you.

Once more,

Slumped by the hearth like a particularly unenthusiastic gargoyle,

Eyelids fighting to close,

While the fire flickers with the unpredictable mood of a cat deciding whether to sit or scratch.

You poke the embers with a stick that used to be a spoon before its handle snapped,

And someone declared it multi-use.

You stir the ashes with a confidence you do not possess,

Pretending to know whether it needs more kindling,

Or if you've just ruined everything by exposing its inner shame.

The fire hisses at you.

It knows.

It always knows.

The baby is asleep in your lap,

Somehow heavier than usual,

With the density of a warm brick wrapped in drool.

His tiny fingers twitch every now and then,

Either dreaming of milk or plotting.

It's unclear which.

You shift slightly to unnumb your leg,

And he snorts,

Slaps you once with an open palm,

And settles back into a gentle wheeze that sounds like a badly played flute.

You freeze.

The fire cracks.

You pray to every saint and spirit that the child does not wake again,

Because you are not prepared to explain why you smell faintly of singed sock.

That happened five minutes ago.

You leaned a bit too close while adjusting a log,

And now your left sock has a perfectly toasted heel and the faint scent of despair.

You peeled it off in silence,

And now it's hanging awkwardly from a nail near the chimney,

Steaming like an accusation.

No one's commented on it yet,

But you know someone will.

Probably your brother-in-law,

The one who believes socks are a sign of weakness and that cold feet build character.

He sleeps barefoot under one corner of the blanket and has the nerve to look smug about it.

You sigh,

Quietly,

The kind of sigh that carries years,

The kind that says you were not meant for this life,

That somewhere in the cosmos there is another version of you with a job that doesn't involve staring at angry flames and wondering if the goat can feel smug,

Because she does.

Every time you stoke the fire wrong and get a face full of smoke,

The goat,

Who is inexplicably allowed inside on cold nights,

Lifts her head and smirks with her whole mouth.

You glare at her.

She blinks slowly and goes back to sleep like someone who doesn't pay rent but knows no one's going to ask her to leave.

The fire is fading again.

It does this every twelve minutes,

Just to keep you humble.

You reach for more wood,

Which has the damp enthusiasm of a forgotten sponge,

And toss it on with a prayer disguised as a grunt.

Sparks leap up like angry fleas,

And one of them lands on your tunic,

Right near your collar.

You slap at it wildly,

Managing to wake the baby,

Alert the goat,

And offend the fire all in one motion.

The baby stares at you,

Not crying,

Just watching,

Judging.

You bounce your knee slightly and hum something tuneless in the hopes he'll drift back off,

But his eyes remain open,

Wide and unblinking,

Like he's trying to memorize your face for a future betrayal.

Eventually,

He sighs too and burrows back into your chest.

Nose cold,

Feet colder,

Tiny hands clenched like he's holding onto the last shreds of warmth in the universe.

The fire finally takes the wood and flares up with an enthusiasm that feels personal.

You watch it dance,

Golden and mean,

And wonder how something so pretty can also be the reason your eyebrows are now asymmetrical.

You lean back,

Grateful for the warmth,

Even if it's temporary and conditional.

Your back finds the wall.

It's damp.

You shift forward.

Your spine now hurts in three new places.

This is your throne.

You are the monarch of cold knees and flaming regret.

Your eyes begin to drift shut,

Just for a moment,

Just long enough to know.

You snap them open,

Heart thudding,

Because you've heard the stories.

The ones where someone falls asleep on fire duty and the house burns down and the only thing left is a scorched chicken and a melted bell.

You're not going to be that story.

Not today.

Not over a sock.

So you blink yourself awake and poke the embers again,

This time with a little flourish,

Like maybe if you pretend it's a ritual,

It will feel more important.

The fire hisses in approval or disdain.

It's hard to tell.

Either way,

It's still burning,

Which means you've done your job for now.

You shift the baby again,

Trying to give your left thigh a break,

And he lets out a sigh so dramatic it sounds like it came from someone three times his size.

You mutter,

Same under your breath,

And consider the possibility that you and the baby are the only two in the house who truly understand the struggle.

Someone stirs behind you.

Your wife,

Probably.

She mumbles something about turnips and tugs the blanket closer.

You are not offered any of it.

That's fine.

You're used to this kind of exclusion.

The fire is your companion now.

The fire,

The baby,

And the goat,

Who is definitely planning something.

Another log,

Another adjustment,

Another wave of heat that makes your cheeks red and your eyelids droop in defiance of your survival instinct.

You watch the flames and imagine them as dancers,

Twirling in a performance just for you.

A private opera of smoke and spark,

Accompanied by the gentle gurgle of your child and the occasional wet snort of a sleeping animal.

This is peace,

Or the medieval version of it.

A moment where no one is yelling,

Nothing is collapsing,

And the fire is still yours.

You sit there,

Half asleep and full of soot,

Listening to the crackle of the hearth and the sound of a family breathing around you.

Then the goat farts,

Loud,

Sharp,

With intent.

The baby wakes again.

The fire flares,

And your sock finally falls off the nail and into the ashes.

You stare into the flames and wonder if chairs dream of you,

Too.

You're not awake,

Exactly,

But you're definitely not asleep.

You're in that strange in-between space where time feels like a rumor and your body is both too heavy and too floaty at once.

The fire has dulled to a sleepy red hum.

The rest of the house is breathing softly,

A chorus of slow exhales and wheezing from the cousin with the dairy sensitivity no one talks about.

You sit up,

Not because you want to,

But because your legs have gone numb in a way that feels biblical.

It is the sacred hour,

The gap between first sleep and second sleep,

The time of candlelight and reflection,

And also,

Unfortunately,

Bladder awareness.

You shuffle toward the chamber pot with the resigned dignity of someone who knows there's a very good chance someone forgot to empty it.

Your toe finds something soft and unidentifiable in the dark.

You ignore it.

Back in your corner,

You light a stub of candle from the embers,

Shielding the flickering flame with your hand like you're protecting a fragile idea.

It casts long,

Jittery shadows across the beams overhead and the heaps of humanity piled across the floor.

This is the time for thinking.

Thinking is not invited.

It just arrives,

Dragging existential baggage and weird animal trivia behind it.

You sit.

You stare.

You think.

Do sheep know they're sheep?

Or do they think they're just beings?

Fuzzy,

Grass-consuming entities drifting through the meadow,

Occasionally yelling for no reason?

And if sheep don't know they're sheep,

What does that mean for you?

Are you the medieval equivalent of a sheep?

Are you just following routines,

Chewing metaphorical grass,

And occasionally yelling about firewood?

Your candle flutters.

You start to feel dramatic.

You consider God,

Not in the tidy,

Sunday morning way where he smiles down from stained glass and blesses your turnips,

But in the big,

Shadowy way.

The kind of way that makes you stare into the rafters and wonder if the entire ceiling is a metaphor.

What if he's watching right now?

What if he's waiting to see if you finally understand the lesson hidden in your aunt's endless story about the woman who got cursed for baking bread on a saint's day?

The shadows shift.

Your aunt's nightgown,

Limp on a hook near the hearth,

Sways in the breeze like it has feelings.

For a moment,

You forget everything rational you've ever known and are absolutely convinced it is a ghost.

Not just any ghost.

Your aunt's ghost.

Even though she is very much alive and snoring with operatic flair not five feet away.

You gasp.

Not loud,

But sharp.

The kind of gasp that implies drama.

The kind that makes you clutch the candle a little closer and question your entire lineage.

And in the same instant,

The nightgown moves again.

This time because your aunt,

The living one,

Has rolled over and flung a shoe with terrifying precision.

It hits you in the shin.

You think I don't know you're up?

She hisses,

Not opening her eyes.

You and your big thoughts.

Go back to sleep before I throw the other one.

You nod in the dark,

Rubbing your leg,

And apologizing to the ghost nightgown for the misunderstanding.

The candle gutters in your hand.

Smoke curling like it too is tired of your nonsense.

You lower the flame and try to recalibrate your thoughts to something safer,

Less theological,

Less sheep related.

You think about death instead,

Not your own.

That's too close.

You think about the vague,

General concept of death,

The way people keep dying,

And yet nobody seems to get better at it.

The way your neighbors uncle fell into a well last spring,

And they still talk about it like he did it on purpose.

The way old people in the village speak of dying as if it's both a chore and a punchline.

When I go,

They say,

Just throw me in the field with the turnips,

As if decomposition is a kind of rural retirement plan.

You wonder if you'll die during first sleep or second sleep,

If there's a preferred slot.

You wonder if you'll get a good haunting outfit,

Something dramatic,

Flowing.

The shadows on the wall stretch longer,

Thicker now,

Because the candle is down to its stubby last breath.

The goat stirs in her corner,

Mutters something that sounds like a complaint,

And goes back to dreaming of hay or revolution.

You look at the faint shapes dancing across the beams and convince yourself one of them looks like a chicken.

Not a real chicken,

A ghost chicken,

The poultry specter of some poorly cooked stew.

You shake your head.

You're spiraling.

You shift on your makeshift bedding,

Trying to find a position that's both thoughtful and comfortable,

Which turns out to be a physical impossibility.

Your hip finds a rock.

Your elbow finds someone's foot.

You find despair.

The candle goes out with a whisper.

Darkness wraps around you like a damp cloak.

You sit there blinking,

Waiting for your eyes to adjust.

But there's nothing to see,

Just outlines of family,

The occasional glint of moonlight off someone's forehead,

And the low hum of shared breath.

The questions remain,

Quieter now,

But still squatting in the back of your mind like raccoons in a pantry.

What if second sleep never comes?

What if the candle was the only thing keeping the night orderly?

And now that it's gone,

The hours will slip sideways,

And you'll wander the mental fields of doubt until morning.

What if you are,

In fact,

A sheep?

You lie back down and stare at the ceiling,

Which is invisible now,

But you know it's there.

It has always been there,

Just like God.

And goats,

And your aunt's unnerving accuracy with household footwear.

You close your eyes,

Not because you're tired,

But because there's nothing else to do.

You tell yourself second sleep will arrive soon,

That you'll wake up refreshed,

Full of vigor and non-metaphysical thoughts,

That you'll stop dreaming about sheep and ghosts and chairs.

You lie there.

You wait.

And from somewhere in the darkness,

Your aunt mutters,

Still awake,

Aren't you?

You pretend to be dead,

Not permanently,

Just for now.

The air is cold,

And the ground beneath your feet is suspiciously damp.

You are aware of these things before you're fully aware of yourself.

There's a moment of dreamy confusion as you glance down and register that you are,

In fact,

Outside,

Barefoot,

Wearing what technically qualifies as underwear,

Though the definition is loose,

And so is the waistband.

Your arms are goosebumped.

Your mouth tastes like regret and cabbage.

Your brain is still in the process of buffering.

Then you notice the priest.

He's standing exactly three feet away,

Also barefoot,

Also in his linens,

Also looking confused but trying not to show it.

His nightcap hangs sideways on his head like it's given up.

His eyes meet yours,

And in the flickering moonlight,

You both share the same unspoken question.

What in the holy name of St.

Agatha's Sandals are we doing out here?

You nod.

He nods.

Then you both turn,

In silent,

Synchronized defeat,

And shuffle back toward the house without exchanging a word.

No one needs to explain anything.

You're bonded now.

Two sleep-dazed travelers caught between reality and roast turnip dreams,

Doomed to remember this only in fragmented whispers and half-hearted denials.

It is the medieval way.

Back inside,

The warmth slaps you like a judgmental ant.

You fumble your way across sleeping bodies,

Trying not to step on anything alive or edible and reclaim your spot next to the still-snoring cousin who may or may not have been using your sleeve as a tissue.

You settle in,

Heart still racing,

Unsure whether you're more unsettled by being outside or by the quiet intensity in the priest's sleep face.

You close your eyes,

Determined to forget everything,

But your mind has other plans.

You start remembering things,

Stories,

Warnings.

The old crone from three villages over who used to mutter about moon-walking devils and claimed her chickens were possessed by a sleep spirit.

The man who walked off a cliff after dreaming he was a bird.

The woman who tried to churn butter in her sleep and ended up punching a bishop.

They said it was witchcraft.

They always say it's witchcraft,

Especially when the explanation is less interesting than a good curse.

You wonder if you're cursed,

Not dramatically,

Just casually.

Maybe you walked over a fairy mound as a child.

Maybe you insulted a squirrel with too much attitude.

Maybe the goat hexed you.

It wouldn't be surprising.

You sit up slightly,

Just to check the door.

It's shut.

Probably.

Maybe.

You think you remember closing it.

You think you remember walking back in.

But then again,

You also think you remember dreaming about bread that screamed when you sliced it,

So your grip on the evening's events is tenuous at best.

You lie back down.

Try to breathe normally.

Try not to think about the fact that you and the priest might have been doing this for weeks without realizing it,

That there could be a secret midnight congregation of barefoot villagers unknowingly assembling every night like cursed marionettes.

You imagine a circle of you all,

Eyes glazed,

Shuffling in patterns,

Mumbling hymns backward while the cows look on with smug horror.

You shiver.

The cousin snorts.

You roll over and stare into the darkness.

You can still feel the cold in your bones,

The strange clarity of that moment outside as if the moon was pressing its fingers into your skull and whispering,

You are deeply,

Irreparably weird,

The kind of clarity that comes not from thought but from being yanked halfway between two worlds,

Sleep and waking,

Warm and cold,

Linen and sin.

You consider waking your wife to tell her,

But she's drooling peacefully into a bundle of straw and disturbing her is an act only a madman or a fool would attempt.

You tried it once during a thunderstorm and still carry emotional scars.

You let her sleep.

She deserves to be undisturbed by the fact that her husband is possibly a nocturnal heretic.

Your eyes adjust more to the dark.

The room,

Once shapeless and murky,

Begins to reassemble itself in silhouettes and soft outlines.

You see the baby's foot sticking out of the blanket,

Twitching like it's doing a solo dance.

You see the stack of wood near the hearth.

You see your aunt's nightgown again and nearly scream again because you forgot,

Again,

That it's not haunted,

Probably.

Eventually,

You start to convince yourself it didn't happen.

Maybe it was a dream,

A weird one,

Sure,

But not impossible.

The brain is strange.

You once dreamed you were a potato and woke up convinced you had eyes.

Maybe the priest wasn't even the priest.

Maybe it was just someone who looked like him,

Or a scarecrow,

A sentient scarecrow with deeply judgmental eyebrows.

But then,

Just as you begin to let yourself slide back into the warm syrup of second sleep,

You hear it,

A soft ahem from outside the house,

A single,

Polite throat,

Clear,

The kind that suggests someone is aware they've been seen doing something strange and would like to move on.

You freeze.

Listen.

Nothing else follows.

Just the rustling of straw and the low gurgle of someone's digestive system working through a lentil stew.

You wait a moment longer,

Heart thudding,

But the night stays quiet.

Still,

That sound lingers in your mind.

Familiar,

Holy,

The priest.

You're not alone in this,

Which is somehow comforting and deeply unsettling,

Like being told your weird rash is very common.

You drift back to sleep with a strange mix of dread and camaraderie,

Wondering if the priest will mention it tomorrow.

He won't.

You both know this.

This is a pact sealed in moonlight and shared shame.

Morning comes like a slap.

The baby climbs over you.

Someone knocks over a bucket.

Your wife yells at your cousin about blanket theft.

Normalcy crashes down like a particularly vengeful rooster.

And just as you're pulling on your overshirt and contemplating whether bread counts as breakfast if it's mostly mold,

The priest passes by the door.

He doesn't stop.

He doesn't wave,

But he tilts his head in your direction,

The faintest of nods.

You nod back.

The covenant is kept.

He starts up just after the second rooster,

Right on schedule,

Like some God-forsaken medieval symphony that no one asked for and no one can escape.

You lie there,

Eyes wide,

Arms at your sides like a corpse waiting for peace,

And listen to the low,

Lumbering wheeze of a man inhaling an entire world and then coughing it back out in slow motion.

It starts as a growl,

Builds into a whimper,

And finally crescendos into a honk so powerful the shutters rattle.

You do not know his name.

You do not need to.

He is the village snorer.

He is eternal.

He is three houses away and somehow louder than your thoughts.

You'd tried to sleep first,

Of course.

It's a nightly ritual now.

You rush through your bedtime chores like a man escaping a sinking ship,

Stoke the fire,

Shoo the chickens off the cot,

Lie down with such intensity it feels like a form of prayer.

You know if you can just fall asleep before he begins,

You might stand a chance.

But you never make it.

He always wins.

You hate him.

No,

That's not true.

You admire him in a way that feels unhealthy.

To produce a sound like that,

So low and yet so shrill,

Like a whale's funeral mixed with a tuba full of bees,

Requires talent.

Or nasal polyps the size of apples.

Maybe both.

Your cousin once said he thought the snoring was a punishment from God,

That perhaps the snorer had been cursed by a witch who hated peace in lungs.

Someone else said he was born that way,

Screaming in stereo from the cradle.

You believe both.

You lie there,

Staring at the roof beam that has started to look like a noose.

You count breaths.

You count snores.

You consider moving to the barn,

But the last time you tried,

You woke up with a chicken in your mouth and a rash shaped like Denmark.

You stay put.

He hits a new note.

It's a high-pitched gasp,

Like a boiling kettle trying to scream for help,

And then silence.

Blessed,

Temporary silence.

You don't breathe.

Maybe he's stopped.

Maybe this is the night he simply forgot to snore.

You feel a flicker of hope.

You feel reborn.

Then he starts again,

Louder,

Deeper,

Angrier,

As though offended by your optimism.

You consider murder.

Not a loud,

Bloody one.

Just something subtle.

A well-placed fish in his thatch.

A gently cursed turnip on his windowsill.

You think about slipping a note under his door,

Something anonymous but emotionally devastating.

You sound like Satan's bellows.

Or,

My dreams have moved to another village.

But then you remember you don't know how to write.

Curses.

You try stuffing your ears with straw,

But all it does is make your head itchy and your hatred sharper.

You press a goat pelt over your face.

Now you can't breathe,

And you still hear him.

You whisper prayers that sound suspiciously like threats.

Someone else stirs.

You're not the only one.

You hear the faint creak of another sleepless soul shifting on their mattress of disappointment and bad hay.

You hear a sigh.

Not just any sigh.

A community sigh.

The sound of shared suffering and mild revenge fantasies.

You are not alone.

You imagine a council.

A late-night tribunal of exhausted villagers gathering silently in the dark,

Led not by torchlight but by the guiding rage of a sleepless week.

You all march to his door.

You do not knock.

You simply stand there staring at the wood united in purpose and puffy-eyed solidarity.

Maybe you bring muffins.

Maybe someone throws one.

But in reality,

You do nothing because you are tired.

So tired.

And because medieval justice is unpredictable.

What if he's protected by some ancient village law?

What if he's a minor lord in disguise?

What if his snoring is the only thing keeping the wolves at bay?

You close your eyes and try to pretend his snores are ocean waves.

Hideous,

Gurgling ocean waves filled with regret and phlegm.

You fail.

Your brain is not that creative.

Your brain is picturing him lying there like a contented bear,

Throat open to the night like a cursed wind tunnel,

Dreaming about peace while spreading none.

At one point,

You fall asleep or pass out.

It's unclear.

You wake up to silence.

It's the most suspicious sound you've ever heard.

You sit up,

Confused,

Disoriented,

Your neck shaped like a question mark.

The snoring has stopped.

You wait.

Still nothing.

You panic a little.

Has he died?

Can you feel joy?

You tiptoe to the window and peer out.

His house looks the same.

No smoke.

No fire.

No angry mob.

You return to your cot,

Unsure what to do with this newfound quiet.

You lie down,

Expecting sleep to embrace you now that your nemesis has gone still.

But you can't.

It's too quiet now.

Your ears twitch,

Waiting for the next note that never comes.

Your brain,

Tuned to misery,

Doesn't trust the peace.

You're addicted to the chaos.

You've become a snore widow.

Just as you start drifting again,

Heart slowed,

Blanket tangled,

He returns.

But this time it's different.

A new tone.

A whistle.

You have reached the remix.

You laugh.

You actually laugh.

Softly,

Into the darkness.

Because at this point,

There is nothing else to do.

The man is a gift.

A horror.

A legend.

You will tell stories of him one day.

Over stews and bad ale.

You'll speak of his range.

His passion.

The way he could make a window cry.

You will grow old listening to him.

You will die to the sound of his nasal symphony.

But not tonight.

Tonight,

You sleep.

Eventually.

It starts with warmth.

Not the comforting kind.

Not the kind associated with blankets or tea or a fire that hasn't yet betrayed you by going out at three in the morning.

No.

This is a damp,

Creeping warmth.

A warmth that spreads with unsettling precision.

You open one eye.

You do not move.

You wait.

Because part of you is still hoping it's just a dream.

A particularly vile one.

Yes,

But still a dream.

Maybe you're just being blessed by a small patch of summer.

Maybe the hay beneath you has learned to sweat.

But no.

Your child,

The middle one,

The one with the suspiciously innocent face and the bladder of an untrained goat has rolled over and peed on you.

Again,

You do not scream.

Screaming is for emergencies.

This is not an emergency.

This is a lifestyle,

A routine,

A way of being.

You sigh,

Deep and ancient,

Like a widow remembering better times.

You shift slightly and feel the damp fabric cling to you in protest.

You say a silent prayer to whichever saint oversees urine.

Your spouse does not stir.

Of course not.

They have somehow developed the uncanny ability to sleep through childbirth,

Thunderstorms,

And the time your cousin caught fire after misjudging a candle.

You consider waking them,

If only to share in the suffering.

But then you remember the last time you tried that and how it resulted in three days of glares and the silent treatment served with a side of burnt porridge.

No.

You will suffer in silence,

Like a proper medieval martyr.

You attempt the towel maneuver.

The towel,

In this case,

Is not a towel at all,

But a scrap of something that might once have been clothing.

It's rough,

Mostly holes,

And smells faintly of old onions.

You press it against the offending area with the grim determination of someone darning their own wound.

It doesn't help.

Nothing helps.

You are the ocean now.

You are one with the flood.

The child snores softly,

Peacefully,

As if unaware that their bodily rebellion has ruined another night's rest.

You stare at them,

This tiny tyrant in a linen nightshirt.

Their hair is tousled,

Their cheeks flushed,

Their mouth slightly open in the shape of pure innocence.

You want to love them.

You do love them.

But also,

Just briefly,

You fantasize about placing them gently outside with a sign that says,

Free to a good home,

Or any home,

Or the woods.

You shift again,

Trying to find a dry patch.

There are none.

Your sleeping area is now a topographical map of despair,

Each wrinkle of fabric a small reminder of the pee that binds us.

You think about getting up,

Changing your clothes,

Maybe stepping outside into the freezing night to rinse yourself off in the barrel of rainwater that smells like moss and regret.

But then,

You'd be fully awake.

And if you're fully awake,

The baby might sense it.

And if the baby senses it,

The baby will scream.

And if the baby screams,

So will the goats.

And if the goats scream,

Then it's over.

Civilization collapses.

You stay put.

Your thoughts begin to wander.

You recall the days before children,

Not fondly.

Those days were filled with more work and less warmth,

But with a sort of confused nostalgia.

There was a time you believed sleep was something you earned,

That if you worked hard enough,

If you were good and just,

And kept the pigpen from flooding,

Sleep would come as a reward.

You now know this to be a lie.

Sleep is not earned.

It is stolen,

In pieces,

Between disasters.

You look around the room,

Half-lit by the embers of a dying fire.

Your cousin is curled up with a loaf of bread again,

Having mistaken it for a pillow.

Your aunt is talking in her sleep,

Muttering about ducks and betrayal.

The baby is twitching in the cradle,

Conducting some invisible orchestra.

All is quiet,

Except for the sound of dripping.

Not rain,

Not a leak,

A slow,

Rhythmic drip.

You realize with horror that it's coming from you.

You have become the source.

You close your eyes and contemplate the meaning of suffering.

Is this what the monks chant about?

The noble sacrifice?

The cleansing fires of humility?

You wonder if any of them have ever woken up soaked in someone else's urine.

You doubt it.

Monks have private cells,

And probably dry tunics.

You,

On the other hand,

Have a damp shirt,

A child-shaped leak,

And a questionable towel that's now just moving the problem around.

The fire crackles softly.

A mouse scurries across the floor.

You think you hear an owl hoot,

Or maybe it's just the wind laughing at you.

Either way,

You are now awake,

Wet,

And deeply aware that sleep will not return easily.

You consider writing a song about it.

A ballad.

Something mournful and unnecessarily long.

Ode to the Puddle Child.

It could be a hit at festivals.

You could tour.

Eventually,

The child stirs.

Their eyes flutter open,

Wide and guileless,

And they blink at you like you're the one who did something strange.

Mama,

They whisper.

You're wet.

You stare at them.

They blink again.

Then they roll over and fall asleep.

You are left alone with your thoughts,

Your towel,

And the soft knowledge that you are a mattress to a small,

Uncontrollable waterfall.

You press your face into the driest bit of bedding left,

And exhale slowly.

You will survive this.

Probably.

You drift.

Not into sleep,

But into something adjacent.

A state of waiting.

For mourning.

For dry clothes.

For justice.

You dream of beds with walls.

Of privacy.

Of waterproof surfaces.

You dream of a time,

Far in the future,

When sleep doesn't come with caveats and damp socks.

You dream of vengeance.

But mostly,

You dream of being dry.

It begins with an idea.

Not a good idea,

Necessarily,

But one shaped by exhaustion and delusion and the faint smell of your cousin's feet.

The house is crowded,

The air is warm in the wrong places,

And someone keeps talking in their sleep about tax grain and betrayal.

You can't take it anymore.

You crave silence,

Space,

And the sort of sleep that isn't measured in shallow gasps between elbow jabs.

You gaze out the doorway like a prophet seeking a sign and see the moon hanging fat and generous above the barley field.

It looks like an invitation.

It looks like peace.

It looks like a bed that doesn't snore.

You grab a wool blanket,

A stale piece of bread,

And your pride,

And you declare,

Silently,

Because your aunt is a light sleeper,

That you are sleeping outside tonight,

Like a free person,

Like a druid,

Like someone with dignity and autonomy,

And at least a four-inch buffer from their nephew's nighttime nose-whistling.

It is quiet outside,

Blessedly,

Majestically quiet.

The air is crisp and forgiving.

The ground,

Though lumpy,

Doesn't argue with your spine the way the kitchen floor does.

You lie back in the field,

A single patch of itchy bliss,

And stare at the stars like they belong to you.

You imagine you're a noble on pilgrimage,

A saint in contemplation,

A woodland poet awaiting divine inspiration and perhaps a raccoon sidekick.

This lasts approximately 20 minutes.

That's when you hear the snuffling,

A soft,

Earnest rustling,

The sound of tiny feet navigating the stalks like a drunk little monk with a mission.

You sit up slowly and meet eyes with a hedgehog.

You don't scream,

Not out loud.

The hedgehog,

Having found what it was clearly looking for,

Climbs directly into your boot,

Turns around twice,

And falls asleep.

You don't blame it.

The boot is warm.

So are you.

You are all simply creatures trying to survive the night.

But the romance is fading.

You lie back down and try to reclaim the serenity you briefly tasted.

You tuck the blanket tighter.

You pull your hat low.

You exhale and think holy thoughts.

The stars remain impassive.

Then come the bugs.

They arrive in shifts.

The first wave is polite.

Some midges.

A single moth.

You swat them with a kind of weary patience reserved for toddlers and sin.

But then come the beetles.

Then the mosquitoes.

Then the thing with wings and the confidence of a demon.

You try to ignore them.

You try to think of saints.

You think of Saint Jerome,

Who probably never got a mosquito bite in his ear canal.

You envy him.

A breeze picks up.

It smells like cow.

Of course it does.

The moon is lower now,

Smirking,

And your blanket is beginning to absorb the chill from the earth.

Your breath fogs the air in front of you.

You shift,

Trying to warm your toes.

But your boot has now fully committed to being someone else's studio apartment and you don't want to evict them.

That feels rude.

You've done enough harm tonight.

You roll onto your side and are immediately poked in seven different places by things that were either thistles or angry fairies.

You roll back.

You close your eyes.

You are almost asleep,

Almost,

Barely,

Blessedly drifting,

When it happens.

A sharp sound,

Like the sky cracking.

A flapping shadow descends from the heavens like a feathery demon of chaos and regret.

And before you can open your mouth to ask the Lord for guidance,

A crow,

Likely sent by a vengeful saint or a very bored angel,

Releases its burden directly into your face.

You freeze.

You do not move.

You do not breathe.

The moment is sacred in its horror.

Then,

Quietly,

You begin wiping your face with the last clean corner of your blanket.

The hedgehog stirs in your boot.

Unbothered,

You lie back down again.

Because what else is there to do?

You stare at the sky and wonder if the stars are laughing.

You think they are.

You think they have every right to.

Somewhere in the distance,

You hear the soft murmur of your family sleeping,

Warm and crowded and blissfully unaware of your outdoor redemption arc.

You consider crawling back inside,

But your legs have fallen asleep and your pride is still too loud.

You attempt to sleep again.

You are a saint,

After all.

Saints do not complain.

Saints do not flinch at bodily fluids from heaven.

Saints embrace discomfort like an old friend and pretend it smells like roses.

Eventually,

You drift off.

You wake up itchy and damp and spiritually defeated.

The sun is rising.

The sky is smug.

You sit up slowly,

Blanket tangled around your shoulders like a battle-worn cloak,

And look around at the field that betrayed you.

The hedgehog is gone.

The crow is probably bragging to its friends.

You limp back to the house.

No one says anything when you return.

Your aunt raises an eyebrow.

Your spouse hands you a piece of turnip without asking questions.

Your youngest smiles at you with a single tooth and then sneezes directly into your face.

You nod solemnly.

You have been humbled.

You have been pooped on.

You are home.

Last night,

You dreamt of a turnip crying,

Not weeping politely or shedding a single noble tear like a widow in a song,

But sobbing,

Full-bodied,

Theatrical,

Wailing into the night like it knew secrets it wasn't supposed to keep.

The turnip had eyes,

Of course.

They all do in dreams.

It also had your uncle's mustache,

Which is what makes you sit bolt upright at dawn,

Heart pounding,

Mouth dry,

And unsure whether you've had a spiritual revelation or just eaten too much barley mash before bed again.

You don't have time to figure it out on your own.

By sunrise,

Your mother is already asking if you had any night knowledge.

This is not a euphemism.

She means dreams,

Visions,

Omens,

Messages from the other side,

Or possibly just your digestive tract.

You try to wave her off with a grunt and a piece of old bread,

But she sees something in your face,

Something twitchy,

Something divine.

You are marched to the elder's hut,

A ten-minute walk if you go slow,

Or four if your mother drags you like a naughty goat.

The elder is already awake.

Of course,

She island.

She hasn't slept in years,

Claiming her dreams are too valuable to waste.

She drinks tea made from herbs that smell like boiled shoe and stares at you like you are both an inconvenience and the chosen vessel of truth.

You confess your vision.

You describe the crying turnip.

You mention the mustache.

The elder nods slowly,

As if this all makes perfect sense.

She makes a few thoughtful sounds and sprinkles crushed eggshells into a small dish,

As though seasoning your trauma.

Then she says it.

Someone's pregnant.

You blink.

You look behind you,

Just in case she's speaking to a different victim of vegetable prophecy.

She is not.

She is staring directly into your soul,

And now she's poking the eggshells with a twig and humming.

Do you know who?

You ask,

Mostly to fill the silence before you cry.

She shrugs.

Could be you.

Could be someone nearby.

Could be the goat.

You nod.

This is fair.

You have no idea how these things work,

Either.

The village takes dream interpretation very seriously.

It's cheaper than a doctor and significantly more entertaining.

Everyone dreams,

But not everyone dreams with meaning.

The butcher,

For example,

Dreams only of sausages,

Which has been deemed spiritually neutral.

The priest's wife once dreamt of a blackbird whispering to her in Latin,

And for three weeks everyone assumed she was about to die or get elected to something.

Neither happened,

But it did give her an excuse to sit down a lot and refuse to do laundry.

Your dream is different.

It has layers.

A turnip,

Crying,

With your uncle's facial hair.

That's symbolism.

That's drama.

That's a sign.

By midday,

The dream has spread.

You didn't tell anyone,

But your cousin did.

Loudly.

At the well.

To a stranger.

Who told the baker.

Who told his wife.

Who told her mother.

Who has not spoken to your family in seven years,

But still felt morally obligated to knock on your door and say,

Heard about the turnip.

Congratulations.

You spend most of the afternoon in hiding.

You try to go about your business,

But people keep glancing at your stomach like it might speak.

A small child offers you a flower for the baby.

You take it and eat it out of spite.

You are not pregnant.

You are not divine.

You are a tired,

Slightly damp person,

With hay in your shirt and a grudge against root vegetables.

By evening,

Your uncle finds out.

The one with the mustache.

He is flattered.

Deeply,

Unreasonably flattered.

He now believes himself to be a prophetic figure,

Possibly a saint.

He starts humming loudly and holding turnips up to the light,

Squinting as though trying to read scripture in their folds.

He also stops doing chores.

Can't sully the hands of the chosen,

He says,

As you shovel manure and plot revenge.

The turnip itself is gone,

Of course.

It wasn't real.

But that doesn't stop your aunt from placing a bowl of them by the hearth,

Just in case one cries again.

You lie awake that night,

Surrounded by your family's snoring and the subtle crunch of uncooked root vegetables.

You wonder how your life became so dominated by the whims of tubers.

Somewhere between first sleep and second sleep,

You drift into another dream.

This time it's a potato.

It's not crying.

It's just sitting there,

Judging you.

You wake up cold and spiritually exhausted.

In the morning,

The elder appears at your door.

She has brought a chicken feather and a small bottle of mystery liquid.

She does not explain.

She tells you the crying turnip was only the beginning.

She tells you the air feels thick with prophecy.

She tells you the wind is saying your name.

You tell her it's probably just your uncle shouting again.

She doesn't laugh.

She never laughs.

Later,

A stranger arrives in the village.

She's lost,

Tired,

And visibly pregnant.

Everyone looks at you.

You look at them.

The elder closes her eyes and nods as if the entire narrative now makes perfect sense.

Someone whispers the turnip knew.

The stranger,

Who has never heard of you or your spiritual vegetable,

Is given food,

Shelter,

And a ceremonial blanket.

You are left with a reputation,

Several new responsibilities you never asked for,

And a carved turnip placed lovingly on your sleeping mat for protection.

You dream again that night.

A carrot,

Wearing boots.

It says nothing,

Just winks.

You don't tell anyone.

During the watch,

You find yourself drawn to the well,

Like a moth to a flickering candle or a particularly gossipy flame.

It's dark,

Obviously,

And the moon hangs limp in the sky like it's bored of performing night after night.

The stars do their best to look mysterious.

You wrap a blanket around your shoulders,

Even though it smells vaguely like onions and betrayal,

And step out into the cool air.

The door creaks behind you with a judgmental sigh.

The well is the only place open at this hour.

That's not entirely true.

Technically,

The chicken coop is open too,

But chickens are less philosophical and more judgmental,

And they don't laugh at your jokes.

The other night wakers are already there,

A loose collection of people who pretend they came out for spiritual reflection but are mostly here for the oatcakes and scandal.

There's Thomas,

Who brings his own stool and sits on it like a pope of midnight nonsense.

Agnes,

Who never actually sleeps and might be part bat.

Your cousin Edric,

Who doesn't say much but grunts in useful ways.

And then there's widow Brana,

Whose presence ensures two things.

The conversation will get deeply theological,

And someone will cry.

You slide into the circle like a raccoon joining a campfire.

Someone nods at you.

Someone else offers a cake that smells like regret and cloves.

You take it anyway.

You've eaten worse.

You're still haunted by that boiled eel from Easter.

Tonight's topic begins,

As many nights do,

With the question of damnation.

Not yours,

Thankfully,

But someone's.

Agnes claims the priest's goat is possessed.

No one disagrees.

The goat has one eye and a habit of screaming precisely when the Psalms reach their most dramatic moment.

You point out that the goat also bit the relic last week.

The discussion shifts immediately to exorcism,

Practical goat-related curses,

And the theological implications of hooves.

Widow Brana stares into the well like she's expecting it to speak Latin.

She says water reflects truth.

She also says her dead husband speaks to her through her toes.

No one argues.

You're all too tired,

And possibly enchanted.

The oatcakes make their rounds again.

This batch is denser than the last and seems to contain twigs.

You chew anyway,

Because food is food and you're not here to be picky.

You once ate a beetle on purpose just to win a dare.

You've come far.

Thomas begins reciting snore analysis.

It's his specialty.

Apparently,

Snore rhythms are like fingerprints,

Unique,

Revealing,

Sometimes criminal.

He claims the blacksmith's snore has a demonic trill on the inhale,

Which suggests he may be consorting with dark forces or just has a deviated septum.

Either way,

It's thrilling.

You ask if that explains why your baby nephew snores like a dying bagpipe.

Thomas looks concerned and offers you a sprig of something that might be parsley or might be cursed.

You accept it with grace.

The firefly count is higher than usual tonight.

Edric tries to catch one.

He fails.

This is not new.

The conversation meanders toward politics.

It always does.

You're not allowed to say the word tax too loud or the elder appears from behind a tree.

So instead,

You speak in code.

The barley whispers are rising,

Someone says.

The grain counters have been counting extra.

Everyone nods sagely.

Someone mutters misericordia under their breath.

You have no idea what's happening,

But it feels important.

Eventually,

Brana brings it back to sin.

She always does.

She says the moon looks like an eye tonight,

And she's not wrong.

It's judging you,

All of you,

Especially you,

Because you accidentally stole a radish from your neighbor's cart last week and ate it without confession.

You consider apologizing publicly,

But Agnes is already ranting about dreams again.

Last night she dreamt of flying fish.

She believes this means a wedding is imminent.

You ask whose.

She says yours.

You nearly choke on your twig cake.

The air shifts a little colder,

And someone adds more sticks to the nearby lantern.

It flares briefly,

Illuminating all your very tired faces.

You all look like saints and thieves in leftover soup.

The well creaks.

The rope swings a little.

You all pretend not to notice.

Ghosts are not tonight's topic.

Someone hums a song no one knows the words to.

Everyone joins in anyway.

You get the rhythm wrong but clap at the right moments.

It's enough.

The night stretches out.

You talk of weather,

Crop failures,

And the time Brana's cat brought home a relic that turned out to be a spoon.

You argue about whether fish dream.

You agree not to talk about the miller's third wife.

You all eat more oat cake,

Which now tastes faintly of soap and mystery.

Eventually,

The conversation slows.

People shift on their stools or stones,

Blinking slower.

A yawn passes through the group like a blessing.

You realize it's nearly time for second sleep.

The sacred return.

The homeward crawl.

One by one,

Your fellow night scholars drift off.

Agnes vanishes into the mist like a suspicious fog.

Thomas carries his stool like a throne.

Edric grunts twice and walks straight into a fence.

You linger a little longer,

Finishing your oat cake and watching the moon give you side-eye.

You leave the well in silence.

The walk home is gentle.

No sudden omens.

No crying vegetables.

Just the sound of night birds and your own footsteps.

You reach the door,

Open it quietly,

And slip inside.

Everyone is still asleep.

The fire has dulled to a warm sigh.

You lie back down in your corner,

Blanket wrapped around you like an apology.

You close your eyes and think of oat cakes,

Of possessed goats,

Of flying fish and spoon relics,

And snore patterns that tell the truth.

Second sleep comes quickly.

The watch is over.

You kneel beside the straw pallet,

Joints crackling like old wood,

Hands pressed together in piety or something close enough.

It's dark,

Quiet,

Save for the occasional creak of the rafters or the wet snort of a pig dreaming nearby.

You are supposed to be communing with the divine,

Opening your soul,

Releasing the burdens of sin and wondering why God invented mosquitoes.

You close your eyes,

Which is not technically required but does make the experience feel more official.

And also,

Your eyes are very tired.

They've been working all day,

Unlike your cousin who has been fasting from labor for three consecutive seasons.

You start with the usual lines,

Our Father,

Hallowed,

Kingdom-bred debts.

But somewhere between forgive us and lead us not,

Your head starts to tilt,

A subtle sway,

The sacred slump.

Your shoulders relax.

Your knees stop registering complaints.

You forget whether you're repenting or just remembering that time you fell into the latrine pit in front of the baker's daughter.

You fall asleep in the holiest posture known to mankind,

Hunched,

Snoring faintly,

And mumbling phrases like,

Deliver us from turnips.

You dream,

Naturally.

It's hard to say where the prayer ends and the dream begins.

One moment,

You're asking forgiveness for yelling at the chickens again.

And the next,

You're floating above the village on a cloud shaped like your grandmother's nose.

You see the blacksmith's house melt into a large wheel of cheese.

A cow speaks Latin.

Someone throws you a loaf of bread that turns into a fish mid-flight.

You accept this,

Without question.

The divine is mysterious.

You snore once,

Just once,

Loud enough to wake the baby who is sleeping ten feet away and is immediately insulted that someone dared to dream more loudly than him.

The baby screams.

Someone in the dark hisses.

Someone else throws a boot.

It misses.

But you remain perfectly still,

Still upright,

Still folded neatly into yourself like a saint in a shrine.

You are not technically awake,

But you are definitely not fully asleep anymore.

The boot lands near your head with a thump.

You jolt,

But not enough to appear conscious.

You've reached the spiritual state of half dead,

But not totally sinful.

You adjust your hands slightly,

As though giving thanks.

For what?

You aren't sure.

Maybe for the boot not connecting with your skull.

Maybe for the warmth of your drool on your wrist.

Morning comes before you know it.

The sun peeks through the holes in the wooden wall like a nosy neighbor.

You blink your gummy eyes open to find your family already moving around,

Shuffling,

Stretching,

Arguing over whose turn it is to fetch water or scare off the geese.

You unfold your limbs slowly,

Reverently,

Like someone recovering from divine contact.

Someone gasps.

Look at him,

Your aunt whispers.

He was in prayer all night.

The words settle over you like a warm cloak stitched with lies and a hint of flattery.

Truly devoted,

Says your mother,

Her tone full of awe and very mild suspicion.

You blink again,

Too confused to explain and too tired to argue.

You try to speak,

But a crumb falls out of your mouth.

You have no idea where it came from.

Possibly the oat cake you forgot to finish before prayer.

Possibly your own spiritual decay.

You are praised for your vigil.

You are asked to lead grace at breakfast.

You mutter something vaguely holy about porridge and strength and avoiding famine.

Someone tears up.

Someone else blesses the spoon.

You do not correct them.

You do not correct anyone.

Because here's the thing.

Once you're known as the devout one,

You don't have to do things like clean the outhouse or scrape the dried goat droppings off the front steps.

People start asking your opinion on moral dilemmas,

Like whether it's a sin to trade bread for gossip or whether sneezing during Mass is a sign of demon possession.

You make up your answers.

Soft voice.

Serious eyes.

You say things like,

The Lord works in mysterious dough.

And everyone nods.

You should feel guilty.

You do not.

Because later that afternoon,

When you are forced to mend a fishing net and get slapped in the face by a wet rope,

You realize that sainthood has limits.

You are still human.

You are still itchy.

And you still get blamed when the baby starts chewing on the candle.

So that night,

When it's time for prayer again,

You kneel a little slower.

You position yourself carefully.

You check for boots.

You make sure the pig is settled and the ant is not hovering with ghost-like intent.

You begin your prayer once more.

You whisper the same lines.

You start to drift.

But this time,

You do it with confidence.

This time,

You know that falling asleep in prayer is not laziness.

It is strategy.

It is efficiency.

It is your new path to glory.

You sleep like the faithful.

And you snore like a monk who knows no shame.

You wake up scratching,

Which is not a surprise.

You also went to bed scratching.

You've spent so much time scratching lately that your body now considers it a form of prayer.

It's not elegant.

There's no rhythm to it.

Just a slow,

Resigned clawing at your own skin,

While silently asking the heavens why your existence must come with so many small,

Skittering torments.

You think about blaming the hay,

Or the pig,

Or the sin of pride from three weeks ago when you boasted about not getting lice this year.

You tempted fate,

And fate came bearing teeth.

You're not entirely sure what bit you during the night.

It could have been a flea.

It could have been a tick.

It could have been the local mouse who's taken to sleeping in the fold of your blanket and has no concept of boundaries.

You've named him Basil.

You hate him.

He knows this.

You lock eyes every now and then,

And it's always tense.

He's winning.

He sleeps better than you do.

The rash started on your ankle.

Small and almost polite,

Like it was asking permission to spread.

You didn't notice at first,

Distracted by larger issues like chronic cold,

The smell of feet,

And your cousin's nighttime singing,

Which is mostly groaning and the occasional word like porridge or regret.

But then the rash moved.

Upward.

With ambition.

You respect that.

In theory.

In practice.

It's a nightmare.

You once tried applying a poultice made of crushed herbs and what might have been mashed peas.

It did nothing.

If anything,

The rash applauded your effort and doubled in size out of spite.

Your aunt suggested prayer.

Your brother suggested ash.

Your neighbor offered to spit on it,

Claiming ancestral knowledge.

You declined.

Mostly.

By the time you're truly awake,

The itching has moved to the back of your neck.

You reach to scratch it and accidentally whack your forehead against the wooden wall beside your sleeping spot.

You curse softly,

Then apologize to the baby,

Who is somehow still asleep.

You wonder what that's like,

To sleep soundly in a bed filled with straw,

Body fluids,

Crumbs,

And unresolved tension.

You envy the baby.

You also suspect the baby is the one who brought the fleas in the first place.

Babies are like that.

Sweet faces.

Pest magnets.

Your spouse stirs beside you,

Rolling over with the grace of a collapsing cart.

Their elbow lands on your arm.

You yelp,

Which wakes the dog,

Who was sleeping at your feet but has now relocated to your chest.

He is warm,

Heavy,

And indifferent to your suffering.

You consider pushing him off,

But he growls in his sleep and you remember the last time you tried.

It ended with a scratched chin and a damaged sense of authority.

Eventually,

The scratching becomes so constant that it stops feeling like a reaction and starts feeling like a hobby.

Something to do with your hands when conversation dies.

You scratch during chores.

You scratch during meals.

Once,

During Mass,

You scratch so furiously that the priest paused mid-sermon and squinted at you like he was trying to determine if possession could start in the ankles.

You smiled and mumbled something about the holy fire of penance.

He nodded.

You're not sure he believed you.

The rodents are not helping.

You've heard them at night.

Chewing things.

Moving things.

Plotting things.

You've started sleeping with one eye open and a stick nearby.

Last week,

You found a chewed hole in your only decent sock.

Basil again.

You patched it with twine and tears.

This morning,

You notice the other sock is missing entirely.

You suspect he's building a nest or a shrine.

Possibly to you.

Out of spite,

You tell your family about the rodents and rashes and general collapse of your bodily comfort.

They listen the way people listen when they are half asleep and vaguely amused.

Your uncle offers you a tincture that smells like vinegar and onion.

Your sister-in-law suggests you bathe.

You all laugh.

Bathing is a luxury reserved for saints,

Royalty,

And people who fall into rivers by accident.

At midday,

You catch yourself scratching while talking to the village healer.

She watches you with concern and then hands you a pouch of herbs wrapped in cloth and doubt.

Boil these,

She says.

Then stand in the steam.

You nod solemnly.

Later,

You forget the instructions and end up chewing on the herbs.

They taste like sadness and mold.

You try not to cry.

Night returns like a tired guest,

Bringing with it a new wave of scratching and suspicion.

You lay down cautiously,

Checking your bedding for movement.

You find nothing,

Which is suspicious,

Because nothing is never nothing.

You settle in,

Already bracing for the itch to begin.

You try to think about something else.

Clouds.

Bread.

That one time you got to sleep in a barn alone and it felt like heaven.

But then something nibbles your toe.

You freeze.

You try to tell yourself it's the wind.

Or maybe the blanket.

Or maybe the ghost of that mouse you accidentally sat on in the spring.

You know it's not.

You try to think holy thoughts.

You try not to scream.

You whisper a prayer to St.

Benedict,

Patron of things that bite you in the night.

You feel the nibble again.

A delicate,

Almost affectionate chewing.

You pretend it's a blessing.

It's probably not.

You wake up shivering,

Which is both a nightly ritual and a quiet declaration of defeat.

The blanket,

The one blanket,

The only blanket,

Has once again been claimed in its entirety by your spouse,

Who now slumbers with the serene confidence of a person nestled in woollen opulence,

Arms folded like royalty,

Legs splayed like a victorious sea star.

You,

On the other hand,

Curl into the fetal shape of a regretful quail and try to remember what warmth felt like.

It wasn't always this way.

Or maybe it was.

It's hard to say.

The earliest blanket memories are already tinged with struggle.

The constant pull.

The midnight whispers of just a bit more.

The occasional kick to the shin followed by dramatic sighs and shifting.

You thought marriage would be a joining of souls.

Turns out,

It's more like a quiet war fought under one square of cloth that smells like goat and compromise.

You reach for the corner,

Cautiously,

Like someone attempting to steal bread from a sleeping dragon.

Your fingers make contact with the rough edge,

Threadbare,

And slightly damp from someone's foot.

You hesitate,

Then tug.

Just a little.

A diplomatic tug.

A suggestion.

Your spouse groans and performs the patented full-body roll,

Wrapping the blanket tighter around them,

Like a burrito of self-interest and betrayal.

You stare at their back with the cold eyes of a spurned negotiator.

You whisper threats.

They breathe through their nose.

The negotiation has failed.

You've lost the night's treaty.

Still,

You are not without skills.

You've learned the art of bartering in ways only the chronically underblanketed can.

Straw,

For example,

Has value.

So does flattery,

Strategic coughing,

And the emotional leverage of having done fire duty three nights in a row.

Sometimes,

If you promise to get up with the children when they scream into the void at dawn,

You are granted one half of one blanket edge.

Not warmth,

Per se,

But the idea of warmth.

You think about sleeping in the barn.

Again,

The cow doesn't hog the blanket.

She doesn't even require one,

Just her own personal patch of hay and the occasional affirming grunt.

But the barn has its own politics,

Mice,

Mysterious puddles,

And that rooster with eyes like judgment.

You stay inside,

Opting instead to become one with the wooden floor and imagine yourself as a particularly sad root vegetable.

Your foot touches someone else's foot.

It's a child,

You think.

Possibly yours.

Possibly a neighbor's.

The bed has no borders.

Children come and go like whispers,

Their loyalties shifting based on who offers the softest elbow or the least amount of snoring.

This one kicks.

You kick back,

Softly,

Just enough to remind them you exist and are willing to fight.

Another small body rolls onto your shoulder.

They sigh contentedly.

You do not.

Their tiny hand finds your ear and holds it like a security talisman.

You are now a pillow,

A freezing,

Earless pillow.

You begin to hatch plans.

At first,

They are passive.

You imagine slowly sliding out from beneath everyone and stealing the blanket entirely,

Wrapping yourself like a selfish saint and declaring victory as your teeth finally stop chattering.

Then the plans grow darker.

What if you poked a hole in the blanket and wore it like a poncho?

What if you trained the dog to guard your side at night,

Snapping at encroaching feet with well-timed growls?

What if?

Stay with me.

You just made your own blanket?

The thought is absurd.

You laugh softly into the darkness,

Which is how people know you've officially broken.

No one just has a second blanket.

That's rich people talk.

That's manor house fantasy.

You once knew a man who owned two blankets.

He was burned as a witch.

Instead,

You adjust.

You shift.

You roll onto your side and wedge your arm beneath your head for cushion,

Your knees pulling up to preserve whatever heat hasn't abandoned you in search of someone more deserving.

The fire is low.

The wind outside hums against the shutter like an old song about regret.

You stare at the ceiling and wonder how the blanket,

A thing meant for comfort,

Became the most contentious item in your life.

Somewhere in the corner,

Your aunt mutters in her sleep something about soup and a man named Clive.

You try not to think about it.

In the morning,

No one will speak of the blanket war.

They never do.

It's unspoken.

The cold war beneath the sheets.

You'll all rise and pretend it didn't happen.

Your spouse will stretch luxuriously,

Yawn like a cat,

And mention how they slept terribly,

Which is a blatant lie,

And you'll nod as if you believe them.

The children will scatter like pigeons.

The dog will sneeze on your only clean shirt.

Life will go on.

But tonight,

You are the blanket martyr,

The unsung hero of the shared bed.

You do not sleep.

You endure.

And as the sun begins to threaten the horizon,

You make one last attempt,

An inching,

Curling movement that,

If successful,

Might reclaim just enough cloth to cover your left shin.

Your spouse shifts and takes the blanket with them.

You stare at the ceiling with the eyes of someone who understands that justice is not a feature of this world,

At least not in beds,

Not with one blanket,

Not at Tuam.

You sleep like a cold spoon and dream of quilts.

You lie down in the hay like a criminal,

Heart pounding with the quiet thrill of defiance.

It's midday.

The sun is bold and nosy.

The church bell hasn't rung for vespers yet.

Bread still needs kneading.

Goats still need glaring at.

And someone is probably about to start yelling about turnips.

But here you are,

Horizontal.

You're not sick.

You're not dead.

You're just napping.

This is not done.

Napping is a sin of the soft,

A weakness of the idle,

A whisper of sloth curled up in the corner of the communal barn.

You do it anyway.

The first few minutes are tense.

Every creak of the wooden floor,

Every sigh from the wind outside the thatched roof feels like a tribunal forming.

You close your eyes but keep your ears open.

Your body lies still,

But your guilt sits up in paces.

It was just supposed to be a rest,

A momentary surrender.

You had soup,

After all,

And too much soup makes a person philosophical and slow.

The fire was warm.

The children were pretending to read runes or rocks or whatever today's plaything is,

And the floor seemed less awful than usual.

So you leaned back.

Then you slid down.

Now,

Your cheek is on straw,

And you're rethinking everything you thought you knew about courage.

Someone gasps.

It's not a big gasp,

But it's theatrical.

You open one eye to see Agnes the millwife clutching her apron like it's a holy relic.

She looks like she's seen you steal from the offering plate or wear shoes indoors.

Behind her,

A child squints.

The child does not gasp.

The child understands.

Agnes leans in.

You sleeping?

She hisses,

As if the act of asking will summon demons.

You do not answer.

This is a tactical decision.

The less you speak,

The more mysterious and powerful your rebellion becomes.

A moment passes.

A chicken clucks with menace.

Agnes stares longer than anyone needs to stare at a sleeping person,

Then scuttles off muttering something about idle hands and Satan's embroidery club.

You exhale.

The nap resumes,

Only it's not a nap.

Not yet.

It's a negotiation.

Your limbs are willing,

But your mind is suspicious.

You catalog the sounds of the cottage.

A cough,

A dropped ladle,

A sheep sneezing somewhere with gusto.

None of it is urgent.

That alone is rare.

Suspicious,

Even.

You're beginning to suspect this nap might succeed.

Then a shadow blocks the light.

Your cousin's husband,

Who has never once minded his own business in the history of time,

Has arrived to offer his thoughts.

Uninvited,

He squats beside you like a constable inspecting a crime scene.

You all right?

He asks.

His tone suggests concern,

But his eyes suggest envy.

You grunt.

This is the universal language of go away,

Spoken by nappers throughout the ages.

He remains.

We've still gotta fetch water,

He adds,

Helpfully.

And Maude said the fence needs fixing.

Again,

You roll onto your side,

Facing away.

It's not an answer,

But it is a declaration.

You are horizontal,

And you are staying that way.

Whether this is out of principle or pettiness,

You no longer know.

He sighs.

Then,

After a moment,

He lies down,

Too.

Now.

It's a movement.

Minutes pass.

A second cousin appears,

Stares,

Shrugs,

And curls up by the fire like a sleepy dog.

Someone's grandmother arrives with a potato in her hand,

Sits down,

And slowly begins peeling.

For reasons unclear,

She is humming.

You are now the nucleus of a tiny,

Accidental commune.

A child.

Yours.

Maybe.

Climbs onto your legs.

You do not move them.

You have lost ownership of your lower limbs anyway.

They are no longer yours.

They belong to the collective.

Just as your eyes begin to slip closed again,

A voice rings out from the doorway.

It is sharp.

It is familiar.

It belongs to Judith,

The head of communal order and the loudest knitter in six villages.

Well,

I never,

She announces,

Staring at the sleeping pile like it's a stack of stolen hams.

Middle of the day,

And we're all just laying about like cows on a feast day.

Any one of theirs manned because riding in wear of the tanned.

In the tanser of their manned,

You resist the urge to moo.

Judith marches closer,

Her knitting needles clacking like judgment.

She peers down at you,

Specifically,

Because leadership requires scapegoats.

You've got bread to bake and turnips to sort,

And who's going to chase the geese if you don't?

She barks.

You open one eye again.

You do not speak.

You do not apologize.

You simply stare with the expression of someone who has seen through the veil of obligation and found it to be nonsense.

This is not sleep.

This is spiritual resistance.

Judith makes a strangled noise,

Possibly a growl.

She stomps out,

Muttering about the fall of civilization and what the bishop would say if he saw this.

You exhale,

Victorious.

It isn't a deep nap.

It's the kind of nap that feels like a secret,

Like a crime you'll never fully be punished for,

The kind of nap that brushes your cheeks with the edge of dreams but doesn't dare invite you in fully.

You float there,

Halfway between guilt and glory,

Between hay and heaven.

Outside,

A cart creaks.

A dog barks at nothing.

Inside,

Someone begins snoring softly.

It's contagious.

You almost join them.

You dream,

Briefly,

Of a feather mattress and a bed with actual corners.

In the dream,

No one speaks of chores.

No one expects anything.

You sleep and wake and sleep again,

A loop of luxury unimaginable to your real-life body,

Currently pressed against three other people and a suspiciously warm loaf of yesterday's bread.

When you open your eyes,

The sun has shifted.

Your hip aches from the floor.

The child is gone.

The potato is half-peeled.

You feel no more rested than you were before,

But you feel right,

As if some primal balance has been restored.

You sit up slowly,

Brushing straw from your hair.

The others begin to stir.

You've started something,

A tiny revolution,

One nap at a time.

You stretch your arms and rise with the solemn grace of a martyr-turned-prophet.

You will bake your bread.

You will chase the geese.

But you will do so knowing that for one scandalous,

Glorious moment,

You slept at noon and survived.

You fall asleep again two hours later,

Sitting up,

Mid-sentence.

No one dares stop you.

You lie in the dark beside your spouse,

Each of you shaped like a question mark,

Curled toward or away depending on the day's mood and the state of your backs.

The straw pokes into places it shouldn't.

There is no pillow,

Just a vague suggestion of one,

A folded tunic stuffed with regret and last season's hay.

Still,

You rest your head there like it's a feather-stuffed heirloom from Byzantium and not,

In fact,

Something that once smelled like fermented onions.

The night hums around you.

The fire's mostly out,

Save for a single sullen ember sulking in the hearth.

One of the children coughs.

Once,

A dog whimpers in its sleep.

Someone,

Somewhere,

Is still chewing.

You do not investigate.

You turn to your spouse,

Who is already awake,

Eyes glittering faintly in the gloom like a cat that suspects gossip is afoot.

The day is done.

The chickens have been herded,

The turnips emotionally processed,

The neighbor's sermon endured with only moderate eye-rolling.

Now is the sacred time.

This is your version of courtship.

Did you take my sock?

You whisper,

Like a lover sharing a secret.

It's not really a question.

It's an accusation wrapped in domestic diplomacy.

Why would I take your sock?

Comes the whisper back,

Sharp,

But somehow tender.

It barely counts as clothing.

It was on my foot this morning.

Well,

Maybe it finally ran away.

You feel a grin trying to form but suppress it,

Because grinning means warmth,

And warmth means weakness,

And the blanket,

What there is of it,

Is still in dispute.

You make a subtle but dramatic tug.

Your spouse does not respond.

This means war.

The blanket,

Such as it is,

Was once a noble piece of wool.

Now it is a threadbare shroud that does its best impression of being longer than it is,

Stretching only so far before choosing favorites.

Tonight,

It has chosen your spouse.

You attempt to gently reclaim your half.

It does not go unnoticed.

You always do this.

Your spouse hisses.

You wait until I'm almost asleep,

And then you start stealing fabric like a moth with a grudge.

You scoff,

Whispering back with righteous indignation.

I've been cold since Michaelmas.

Your spouse lets out the faintest snort,

Then mutters something about your knees being the temperature of vengeance.

You both go quiet for a moment,

The kind of quiet that fills the space between barbs and fondness,

Where the line between affection and murder is very,

Very slim.

One of the children stirs.

You freeze,

Because there's a rhythm to this,

A choreography.

You can whisper,

Joke,

Tug,

And even commit mild textile theft.

But if the children wake up fully,

It's over.

The night will shift from cozy to chaos in seconds,

And someone will pee on something they shouldn't.

So you wait.

The child grunts and flips,

Possibly dreams of sheep or vengeance.

Then stillness returns.

You exhale together,

Synchronized like monks who just narrowly avoided divine punishment.

You lean closer now,

Blanket war temporarily suspended.

Your spouse smells like baked earth and onions,

And for some reason,

This is comforting.

You whisper about tomorrow's chores,

About who's meant to fetch water,

And who's going to try and mend the bucket that keeps pretending to hold things.

You exchange rumors you already both heard.

You argue softly about whether the moon tonight looks holy or just smug.

You plan.

You tease.

You remember.

This is the good part.

No one talks about this part.

The world likes to shout about daylight and labor and saints and sermons,

But not this moment,

In the straw,

In the hush.

When your voices are small and the sky feels close and the fire crackles like it's listening,

You talk about everything and nothing.

The rat you saw at the edge of the hearth,

The priest's suspiciously shiny boots,

Whether frogs feel sadness,

Whether your neighbor's new baby looks more like a carrot or a thumb,

And eventually,

Inevitably,

Your spouse asks the question,

If you died first,

They begin,

And you sigh loudly,

Because this again,

Would you want me to remarry?

You don't answer.

You just slowly roll away,

Face first into the scratchy tunic pretending to be a pillow,

And groan into it like it's the only sane reaction.

I'm serious,

They insist,

Nudging your calf with an aggressive big toe.

Would you want me to?

You mumble something that could be a yes or a threat.

It's late.

Your bones are tired.

You'd rather discuss anything else.

Taxes.

Pustules.

Your cousin's disappointing beard.

Because I wouldn't.

Your spouse continues,

Voice now deeply theatrical,

Unless he was strong,

And owned two goats,

And had all his toes.

You turn back slowly.

So,

Just the one guy in the next village.

Exactly.

You both go quiet again,

But this time the quiet is warm,

Full of history,

Full of nights just like this one,

And years of near-identical whisper fights,

And the long,

Slow braid of lives bound together,

Not by sweeping romance,

But by shared straw and stolen blankets,

And the ongoing saga of the sock.

You reach out in the dark and find your spouse's hand.

It's calloused,

Slightly damp,

And entirely familiar.

You squeeze once.

They squeeze back.

Another child coughs.

You both whisper,

No,

At the same time.

The night sighs.

A dog sneezes.

Somewhere in the thatch,

A mouse considers your stored grain.

You let your eyes close.

You do not speak again,

But you stay close,

Breath slow and heavy.

The blanket remains unfair.

The floor remains hard.

The pillow remains a myth,

But the whispering was real.

And tomorrow,

It will be again.

The idea seemed harmless enough at first.

A village-wide holiday,

They said.

A day of rest,

They insisted.

A break from the turnip planting,

Goat wrangling,

And general dampness of existence.

Just sleep.

Sacred,

Uninterrupted,

Glorious sleep.

You were skeptical,

Of course.

You've lived long enough to know that whenever people start throwing around words like relaxation and communal harmony,

It usually ends in a fistfight or spontaneous fire.

But still,

You dared to hope.

The sleep festival,

They called it.

No morning chores.

No mid-afternoon sermon.

Just long naps under the sun and maybe some celebratory stew if anyone remembered to start the fire.

The elders blessed it.

The children cheered.

And for a brief,

Fleeting moment,

Peace seemed within reach.

It lasted 17 minutes.

Things began to unravel when Old Gertie declared that no one could properly nap without the sacred hay pile.

This was not a recognized item until that moment.

But suddenly,

Everyone nodded like they'd always known about it.

The hay pile,

As it turned out,

Was just the half-dry stack outside the barn where the goats usually sleep and the chickens occasionally have political debates.

But now it was holy and everyone wanted a piece of it.

You tried to get there early.

You laid out your nap cloth,

A slightly cleaner potato sack,

And positioned yourself facing away from the sun because wrinkles.

You were just drifting off when someone stepped directly on your hand while accidentally stretching.

You opened your eyes to find Jory from across the lane easing himself onto the exact patch of hay you'd just warmed.

You locked eyes.

No words were exchanged.

But something inside you broke.

Elsewhere,

The children,

Drunk with unearned freedom,

Began a competitive snoring contest.

This would have been tolerable if they hadn't included rhythmic foot stomping and a goat in their act.

You watched as two boys took turns attempting to out-snore each other while simultaneously juggling fistfuls of damp bread.

The goat was less amused.

It took one look at the chaos,

Ate a shoe,

And walked into someone's hut.

Meanwhile,

The elders tried to organize synchronized dozing on the village green.

They lay in neat rows,

Like particularly wrinkled sardines,

Humming lullabies and muttering about the old ways.

But sleep is a fragile thing,

And tranquility collapsed completely when someone farted with the power of a war trumpet.

Panic ensued.

Several people sprang upright,

Certain that the Saxons were attacking.

Then came the incident with the pitchfork.

No one really knows who started it.

Some say it was Bran the Miller,

Who woke up after only ten minutes of napping and accused three separate people of hay theft.

Others blame Marigold,

Who tried to build a nap fort out of someone's firewood and was met with swift retaliation in the form of wet cabbage.

Regardless,

There were shouting matches,

Wild gesturing,

And,

At one point,

A legally questionable hay duel.

The pitchfork was wielded not with violence,

But with the kind of passive-aggressive flair only an exhausted peasant can muster.

You try to intervene,

But it's difficult to be a voice of reason when you're wearing one shoe and your other foot is in a bucket of milk for reasons you no longer understand.

Someone rang the church bell in an attempt to restore order.

This worked for exactly four seconds before a group of women,

Still in their nap shifts,

Stormed the bell tower and declared it a monument to unrest.

They draped it with blankets and dared anyone to touch it.

The priest retreated indoors,

Muttering about sin and ulcers.

By mid-afternoon,

The sleep festival resembled less a day of peace and more a vaguely biblical catastrophe.

The nap zones were shredded.

Bread was missing.

Someone had fashioned a helmet out of a chamber pot.

The goat had taken over the hay pile entirely and was now the uncontested king of slumber.

You wandered the chaos like a ghost,

Dragging your knapsack behind you,

Your eyes sunken with defeat and dander.

You'd managed six minutes of actual rest.

Your dreams involved sinking ships and someone whispering the word turnip over and over again.

It did not feel like a blessing.

Then came the council.

A circle of villagers gathered in what was left of the green,

Straw in their hair and bitterness in their souls.

They spoke in hushed tones of lessons learned,

Of naps lost,

Of hay piles misappropriated.

Some wanted to blame the goat.

Others wanted to blame the moon.

Ultimately,

The consensus was reached.

Sleep,

While noble,

Was not a team sport.

The sleep festival was officially canceled.

In its place,

They established a new tradition.

Just get through it day.

No naps.

No joy.

Just mild suffering and boiled beets.

It was,

Everyone agreed,

More realistic.

That night,

Back in your shared straw bed,

You tried to piece together what had happened.

Your spouse asked how the festival went.

You said nothing.

You simply stared at the ceiling,

Thinking of trampled oat cakes and betrayal.

The goat snored loudly from the barn.

You eventually drifted off to sleep,

Not with peace,

But with a kind of grudging resignation,

Like someone who has been personally betrayed by hay,

Which,

In many ways,

You have.

You dream of silence.

You dream of napping alone.

You dream of a world where festivals do not end with weaponized root vegetables.

You wake with straw in your mouth.

You vow never to nap in public again.

You tiptoe like a burglar through your own home,

Careful not to wake the heap of relatives draped across the floor like laundry that's given up.

Each creaky floorboard is a personal attack.

The fire has died to embers,

Casting long,

Suspicious shadows that make your silhouette look like a questionably shaped spirit.

But you are not a spirit.

You are a person on a mission,

A mission to snack.

There's a crust of bread in the corner.

You know it's there because you watched it be forgotten after supper.

You made eye contact with it while pretending to sweep.

You whispered to it in your mind.

You named it Hope.

Now,

In the solemn quiet of the watch,

You make your move.

Your hand reaches out slowly,

Reverently,

Like a monk touching a relic.

The crust is hard,

So hard,

You wonder if it predates you.

You consider the possibility that this is less a food item and more a family heirloom,

But hunger dulls your concern,

So you take it anyway.

You retreat to the hearth like a rat with a diploma,

Victorious and slightly ashamed.

You sit by the dying fire and bite.

The sound it makes is obscene,

Loud,

Crisp,

A medieval gunshot.

Somewhere behind you,

Someone stirs.

You freeze.

Your jaw clenched around a corner of wheat-based shame.

You chew slowly,

Praying for mercy or deafness in your sleeping relatives.

The cat,

Previously curled into a loaf of judgment,

Lifts its head and stares directly into your soul.

Its eyes say,

Really?

You respond with a glare that communicates both defiance and panic.

It licks its paw and turns away,

Deciding that your snack crime is beneath it.

You feel no relief,

Only the weight of sin and gluten.

The bread is dry enough to count as dust.

It disintegrates mid-bite,

Leaving crumbs cascading down your tunic and onto your lap.

You consider brushing them off,

Then decide to leave them.

You call it feastware,

Like it's a trend and not a result of your moral collapse.

You imagine a court of nobles discussing your ensemble.

Ah,

Yes,

They say,

Sipping something fermented.

Crumbs are in this season.

You bite again,

This time.

You're pretty sure you chip a tooth.

Your tongue finds the edge of it,

Jagged and accusatory.

You chew through the pain.

The bread is dense.

Each bite takes approximately seven years.

You pause to let your jaw recover,

Massaging it with the weariness of a man who's seen battle.

The fire flickers as if amused.

A sound.

Behind you.

A snort.

A cough.

A groan.

Someone is waking.

You shove the crust under your leg like it's contraband,

Which,

Technically,

It island.

That bread was meant for tomorrow.

The rules are clear.

Food is portioned,

Sacred,

And not to be consumed during ghost hours.

You are in violation.

A heretic of the pantry.

A rebel of the crust.

Footsteps approach.

Slow.

Bare.

You consider pretending to be asleep,

But that seems difficult mid-chew.

Instead,

You close your eyes and hum something vaguely prayerful.

The footsteps stop.

You peek.

It's your cousin,

The one with the twitchy eye and an uncanny sense of smell.

He squints at you,

Nose-twitching,

Like a ferret evaluating cheese.

You eating?

You hesitate.

Consider lying.

Consider faking possession.

You settle for honesty with flair.

I'm communing in a desire.

With a loaf?

You nod.

With a relic.

He squints harder.

The fire cracks.

You hand him a small shard of the crust,

Like a peace offering or a bribe.

He takes it without ceremony and plops down beside you,

Chewing like a cow who knows exactly what you did but isn't paid enough to care.

Together you sit in silence,

Chewing history,

More.

Footsteps.

You swear under your breath.

Now it's your youngest sibling,

Still in a daze,

Hair like a haystack that's lost hope.

They don't speak.

Just sit beside you and reach out a hand like a sleepwalker requesting sacrament.

You tear the crust in half again.

It's now the size of a coin and twice as precious.

The three of you chew with the gravity of mourners at a funeral.

United in quiet crime and gluten,

The cat returns.

It circles,

Then wedges itself onto your lap without asking,

Mashing your crumbs deeper into your feastware.

You accept this with the resignation of someone who understands hierarchy.

The cat is in charge now.

The cat has always been in charge.

The fire grows smaller.

Someone snores.

A rooster,

Confused and premature,

Lets out a cry from the darkness.

You all look toward the window,

Waiting to see if dawn will betray your sins.

But it's still hours away.

Time is suspended.

The watch continues.

Your cousin breaks the silence.

Think there's more?

You shake your head.

There was only ever this.

He nods solemnly,

Like you've just quoted scripture.

The youngest curls up on the floor,

Cradling their sliver of crust like a toy.

You stroke the cat and stare into the embers,

Which now seem more intimate than holy.

You tell yourself this wasn't a snack.

It was a ritual.

It was survival.

It was communion under the eyes of the gods and the cat.

And though the bread was hard and possibly a week old,

It tasted of something forbidden and thrilling,

Like power,

Like freedom,

Like the faint crunch of rebellion under your molars.

You burp quietly and call it grace.

You are standing in a meadow.

The grass is soft.

The sky is pink.

And no one is shouting about manure.

Birds sing.

Not scream.

Sing.

A warm breeze tickles your face like a mother who isn't stressed about taxes and beats.

There's a chair with a cushion.

You sit in it and sigh so deeply the dream seems to pause and applaud you.

This is sleep the way songs describe it.

Your body feels light.

Your joints don't ache.

There are no rats chewing your sock or cousins breathing in your mouth.

You are alone,

Gloriously,

Wonderfully,

Impossibly alone.

A goat wanders by.

You brace yourself,

Instinctively clutching the arms of the dream chair.

But the goat just nods at you like a gentleman and continues walking,

Hooves not even muddy.

You blink.

This isn't right.

Goats don't behave like that.

Goats eat your things and belch in your face.

You watch it trot off into the horizon with a kind of serene dignity that unnerves you.

You try to relax again.

But the absence of chaos is starting to itch.

You wake up in silence.

That's the first red flag.

No snoring.

No rustling.

No coughs that sound like curses.

Even the baby isn't whimpering.

You sit up slowly,

Certain that either you've gone deaf or everyone else has gone missing.

The fire is a faint glow.

The cat is curled on your spouse's foot like a content pastry.

No one is talking.

No one is dreaming audibly.

It is peaceful.

You hate it.

You lay back down,

Staring at the ceiling beams and trying to figure out why this is wrong.

Your muscles aren't clenched.

Your blanket is still partly on you.

No one is peeing on anything.

You're not cold.

Not itchy.

Not wedged between elbows in regret.

This should be a victory.

A gift from the sleep gods.

But your heart pounds like you're waiting for a shoe to drop.

Possibly the one you left hanging from the rafters to dry.

Peace,

It turns out,

Is suspicious.

Your mind drifts back to the dream.

You were calm,

Rested.

Nothing bad happened.

That's the part that bothers you most.

Where was the disaster?

The embarrassment?

The minor plague?

Even the chair was structurally sound,

Which defies every chair you've ever met.

You roll over.

Still silence.

You try to coax yourself back to sleep.

You count goats,

But they all behave.

No one kicks you.

No one eats your tunic.

One of them offers you tea.

You shoot up in bed.

You miss the chaos.

You miss the snoring.

Even the kind that sounds like someone gargling gravel in their throat.

You miss the familiar creak of the floorboard when your aunt sneaks off to yell at the moon.

You miss the whisper arguments over blanket borders,

The occasional thud of someone turning over too aggressively,

The low hum of barely contained resentment.

You miss home.

Peace is not what you were built for.

You were forged in the fires of nightly inconveniences,

Where a good night's rest includes only three interruptions and minimal livestock interference.

Now you lie in this eerie calm like a knight without a war,

A baker with no dough,

A parent whose children are definitely up to something.

You sit up and listen hard.

Still nothing.

You reach out to your spouse just to check their breathing.

They are.

They grunt and swat your hand away without waking,

Which is oddly comforting.

So this is what contentment feels like.

Clean,

Uncluttered,

Suspiciously efficient.

You hate it more by the minute.

You try to make noise,

Just a little.

A cough.

A shuffle.

The fire pops obligingly,

But no one stirs.

You consider poking the cat.

It opens one eye like it heard your thoughts and dares you.

You back off.

Eventually,

In the stillness,

You begin to feel drowsy again.

Maybe you'll go back to the meadow.

Maybe the goat will finally trip over something and restore your faith in dream physics.

You lie down,

Closing your eyes with the weariness of someone who doesn't trust his own bed anymore.

You dream again.

This time,

The meadow has chairs for everyone.

All your relatives,

Even the ones who owe you bread,

Are seated politely.

No one is arguing.

They're all smiling.

The sky is the color of a well-washed tunic and smells faintly of stew.

Someone hands you a bowl of soup and says no rush.

You eat it slowly.

You wake up furious.

No one's ever given you soup in your dreams.

Not even dream you,

Who should have better manners.

You look around,

Hoping someone has knocked over a pot or sneezed dramatically.

But no.

Still.

Peaceful.

You sigh and rise.

The watch has never felt longer.

You walk past the sleeping bodies,

Your blanket draped around you like a robe of undeserved honor.

You check the pantry.

Not because you're hungry,

But because at least the creaky door used to wake the dog.

Even the door is quiet.

You bite a corner of stale bread and hope for crumbs,

Noise,

Consequence,

Nothing.

It's like the house has made peace with the night and now it's you who's the intruder.

You glance down at the cat.

It looks smug.

Or asleep.

Probably both.

You go back to bed and lie perfectly still,

Waiting for someone to break the spell.

Hours later,

As dawn finally pokes a cold finger through the shutters,

Your cousin snores.

Loud.

Wet.

Personal.

You smile.

Peace is overrated.

The rooster does not crow once.

That would be tolerable,

Reasonable even.

A simple alarm from nature,

A polite nudge that the sun is coming and you should probably stop drooling into your sleeve.

But the rooster crows again and again and again.

Each cry louder,

More self-satisfied,

Like he's announcing not just the dawn but his personal triumph over everyone else's sleep.

You pull the blanket over your head,

Though the blanket is more whole than fabric and pretend it isn't happening.

But the rooster knows.

He always knows.

The dog joins in next,

Not barking,

Exactly,

But howling.

A long,

Mournful wail that suggests the end of the world or at least the end of his patience.

It echoes through the cottage,

Bouncing off the beams,

Vibrating in your skull.

You groan into the straw,

Which scratches your cheek in response.

Somewhere near your feet,

The cat flicks its tail and sighs dramatically,

Offended that dawn exists at all.

Then the baby erupts,

Not with the steady rhythm of crying,

Which you've come to expect,

But with a sudden wet sound followed by the unmistakable aroma of disaster.

You don't move at first.

You lie very still,

Hoping if you play dead,

Someone else will deal with it.

But your spouse is already shifting beside you,

Muttering prayers that are only half religious.

You feel a sticky warmth spreading near your leg and know,

With the certainty of a condemned man,

That it's your turn.

Morning has arrived,

And it is not gentle.

It is not golden light slipping softly through the shutters.

It is a drunk uncle stumbling into your life,

Loudly,

Carrying stories no one asked for and spilling beer on the floor.

Dawn smells like manure,

Cabbage,

And regret.

Dawn does not knock before entering.

You sit up.

Your hair is a thicket of tangles.

Your tunic is twisted around your ribs like a snake,

And your back makes a noise it shouldn't.

You stretch.

Something pops in your shoulder.

You decide not to think about it.

You squint at the sliver of sunlight stabbing through the shutters like a judgmental spear.

You're awake now.

The day demands it.

The children are stirring.

One kicks you in the shin on their way to consciousness.

Another announces,

Without opening their eyes,

That they're hungry,

Always hungry,

Eternally hungry.

The third sits up and sneezes directly into your face.

You wipe your cheek with the sleeve you were drooling on earlier and call it washing.

Your spouse is already standing,

Adjusting their clothes,

And glaring at the rooster through the wall as if sheer hatred might silence it.

It doesn't.

The rooster continues,

Oblivious,

Proud,

Certain he alone holds the world together.

You envy his confidence.

You hate him anyway.

The dog begins pacing,

Nails clicking against the boards.

He wants out.

He always wants out.

The baby hiccups,

Then laughs,

Then hiccups again.

You know this cycle well.

It ends with something you'll have to mop up using a rag that once served as your good shirt.

You sigh.

You rub your eyes.

You rise.

The floor is cold.

The air is colder.

Your breath fogs in front of you,

Which feels like a cruel joke because it isn't even winter yet.

You shuffle to the hearth,

Poke at the sullen embers,

And blow on them like you're trying to negotiate with a stubborn elder.

They spark weakly,

Reluctantly.

You add kindling.

The fire sulks.

Eventually,

It agrees to live again.

You stare at it,

Triumphant and exhausted.

Behind you,

Chaos builds.

The children are awake now,

Loudly,

Chasing each other in circles,

One carrying the baby like a sack of flour.

The cat leaps onto the table,

Knocks over a jug,

And leaves.

The dog scratches at the door with the urgency of a saint trying to flee sin.

Your spouse is muttering about chores,

Listing them in a tone that suggests you'll be doing half of them whether you like it or not.

Outside,

The village is waking,

Too.

You hear it through the thin walls,

Neighbors calling,

Carts creaking,

A cow complaining.

The world is alive again,

Buzzing and clanging and demanding.

Yesterday is gone.

Today has already begun,

Whether you're ready or not.

You take a piece of bread from the shelf,

Hard as a rock and almost as appetizing.

You gnaw at it anyway,

Jaw protesting.

The rooster crows again.

You whisper a curse under your breath and promise yourself,

Not for the first time,

That tonight's dinner will include poultry.

The baby wails once more,

Louder now.

You pass the bread to the nearest child,

Who drops it immediately onto the floor.

The cat pounces because of course it does.

You sigh again.

You have sighed so many times already and the day hasn't truly started.

Still,

You stretch your arms and straighten your back.

You mutter a small prayer,

Not for strength or health,

But simply for fewer disasters than yesterday.

It's unlikely to be granted,

But habit demands you try.

You gather yourself.

You gather your family.

You gather your dignity,

Or what's left of it after straw hair,

Goat smell and baby vomit.

And then you step fully into dawn,

That rude interruption,

Knowing it will drag you along whether you consent or not.

You crawl back into bed,

Though calling it a bed is generous.

It is straw that pokes your ribs,

A blanket that smells faintly of smoke and goat,

And a pillow that might actually be a bundled shirt you stopped wearing three summers ago.

Still,

You lower yourself onto it like it is a royal mattress because your body has decided it will no longer negotiate.

Your eyes close before your mind can protest.

Sleep arrives,

Not as a guest,

But as a thief,

Stealing away your worries and leaving you briefly,

Mercifully blank.

The noises of the house do not stop.

Someone coughs.

A child murmurs nonsense.

The dog scratches.

The rooster keeps practicing his one note like an arrogant musician.

But your body has learned the art of ignoring.

You slip under,

Heavy and soft,

Drifting on a tide of exhaustion.

When you wake again,

It's in fits.

A toe sticking out of the blanket is freezing,

So you yank it back in.

Someone rolls over onto your arm,

And you wiggle free.

You dream of falling,

Then jerk awake,

Heart racing,

Only to find yourself safe on the straw.

It doesn't matter.

You sink back down because sleep,

Stubborn and forgiving,

Will not let go.

You think about how strange it is,

This persistence.

How every day is so loud,

So cold,

So crowded,

Yet still you collapse into rest,

Like a stone dropping into water.

You wonder if this is survival or madness.

Maybe both.

You wonder if saints slept better.

Probably not.

Even saints had to deal with snoring and lice.

Sometimes,

You nod off where you stand,

Leaning on a fence post,

Stirring a pot,

Pretending to listen to the priest.

Sleep ambushes you like a lover with poor timing.

Once you fell asleep on a bench outside the church and woke with a chicken pecking your boot laces.

Once you dozed in the field,

Mouth open,

Only to swallow a fly and dream vividly of demons.

Still,

You sleep because you must.

Each nap is a rebellion,

A small refusal against work,

Against hunger,

Against everything demanding your attention.

When your head drops forward and your eyes close,

It is your body declaring that you belong,

At least for a moment,

To yourself.

No lord,

No rooster,

No baby with disastrous timing can take that from you.

You guard these scraps of slumber like treasure.

You hoard them,

Even when they are messy and loud.

You dream strangely,

Of course.

You dream of feasts you'll never eat,

Chairs you'll never own,

Silence you'll never meet.

You dream of walking down a road that never ends,

Of rivers that turn into wine,

Of cows that lecture you about morality.

The dreams rarely make sense,

But they soothe you anyway,

Reminding you that even your brain insists on wandering away from misery for a few stolen hours.

And when you wake,

Sore and unrested,

You still rise.

You yawn so wide your jaw cracks.

You rub your eyes with the heel of your hand until the world comes into focus.

You stretch arms stiff from cramped sleeping positions and legs heavy from endless work.

You mutter to yourself about how tired you still are,

But you lived through another night.

That counts for something.

You glance at your children curled in tangled heaps beside you,

Drooling into their sleeves,

Their little mouths hanging open in the oblivion of youth.

They sleep like they invented it,

Fearless,

Unbothered,

Free.

You envy them,

But you also take comfort in their ease.

The world is cruel,

But it still allows them rest.

Maybe that is enough.

Outside,

Dawn sharpens into morning,

And morning drags itself toward noon.

Chores pile up like firewood.

You face the same routine of toil,

The same ache in your back,

The same relentless rhythm,

But in the back of your mind there is always the promise that eventually you will sleep again.

That is your private vow,

Your hidden contract with the universe.

Keep pushing through the hours,

And night will come,

Even when sleep disappoints you,

When rats scuttle in the rafters,

When your cousin snores like collapsing walls,

When your blanket is stolen for the hundredth time,

You still return to it.

Because there is no other choice,

Yes,

But also because there is a strange,

Stubborn hope woven into the act,

You shut your eyes and declare that tomorrow will come whether you're ready or not,

So you may as well rest your bones in the meantime.

The cold can gnaw,

The noise can rattle,

The dread can whisper.

None of it stops you.

You collapse anyway.

You let yourself go slack,

Drifting through straw and shadows,

Trusting that your body knows how to heal itself,

Even if your mind is busy counting debts and curses.

Sleep claims you,

Rebellious and miraculous,

And when it does,

You surrender with a sigh,

And somehow,

It is enough.

Hey guys,

Tonight's story starts with a snore so loud it shakes the candlesticks,

A royal slipper floating in a bowl of soup,

And a bed that takes five servants and two goats to fluff properly.

You've just woken up in a medieval palace.

The ceiling is leaking,

Someone's praying very loudly in Latin two doors down,

And the king is arguing with his astrologer about what hour is safest to nap.

No one agrees.

Someone brings you a mug of something hot that smells like regret and boiled thyme.

You're not sure if this is morning or night or just Tuesday.

Welcome to a world where sleep is political,

Suspicious,

And occasionally conducted inside a closet.

Now get comfortable,

Let the day melt away,

And we'll drift back together into the quiet corners of the past.

You wake up in a bed that crunches,

Not in the gentle,

Cozy way that suggests warm straw and rustic charm,

But in the awkward,

Alarming way that implies coins are shifting beneath your spine and something may be whispering prayers directly into your kidneys.

You shift once and are immediately met with the unmistakable crinkle of parchment and the faint scent of lavender that has given up.

The mattress wheezes like an old priest on a cold stairwell.

Somewhere beneath you,

You're fairly certain a small copper relic just made eye contact with your spleen.

A servant stands nearby,

Fanning you with what appears to be a full goose,

Not a feathered fan,

Not a tasteful plume,

A goose,

Living,

Mildly offended.

Its eyes track your every movement like it's deciding whether you're food,

Royalty,

Or just someone who once stepped on its cousin.

You sit up,

Slowly,

Cautiously,

As the bed groans beneath you like it's been through things it will never talk about.

The frame is carved from some dark wood that was probably sacred before it became furniture.

Intricate symbols are etched along the headboard.

You squint.

One appears to be a bishop juggling fish.

Another might be a bear wearing a crown,

Or possibly just a very fluffy monk.

The more you stare,

The less certain you are that any of this is decorative.

The room is vast,

With ceilings too high for comfort,

And curtains thick enough to count as structural support.

A tapestry hangs crooked above the hearth,

Depicting what might be a battle or a very tense family picnic.

The fire crackles despite it being summer,

And the room already warmer than you're emotionally prepared for.

The scent of honeyed wine lingers in the air,

Mingling with incense and something sharp,

Like boiled onions and indecision.

A footman in a hat that's taller than his sense of self announces that breakfast will be served in two yawns.

You nod solemnly,

As though you understand the measurement of time being used.

He bows so deeply his hat nearly takes out a candle and then backs out of the room,

Tripping only slightly over a golden chamber pot that no one acknowledges.

You swing your legs off the bed and immediately step on a small pile of what you hope is ceremonial confetti and not another attempt at insulation.

The floor is cold stone,

Polished to a shine that mocks you with every step.

Your robes,

Which were left folded on a nearby stool,

Appear to have been scented with something vaguely herbal and definitively disapproving.

A maid enters with a fresh towel and a bucket of water that steams in the way that suggests this is supposed to be refreshing,

Not scalding.

She sets it down,

Curtsies and whispers,

Mind the mattress.

It bites if you bounce too.

Quickly.

Then leaves before you can ask if that was literal or metaphorical.

You return to the bed out of sheer curiosity.

You lift the corner of the blanket,

Expecting straw or perhaps wool.

Instead,

You find layers,

Actual layers,

Each one stuffed with a different ingredient.

One is soft and perfumed,

Another stiff and alarmingly moist.

A third has coins sewn directly into the quilting,

As though someone thought back pain could be soothed by a firm reminder of national currency.

Tucked just beneath the fourth layer is a pamphlet titled Moral Conduct in Dreaming,

Printed in Latin and very clearly bloodstained.

The pillow is shaped like a rectangle but has the texture of old cheese.

It smells faintly of sage and long-held disappointment.

You poke it once and it sighs.

You don't ask questions.

Outside the window,

The sound of horses stomping and someone screaming about jam echoes through the courtyard.

A bell rings somewhere above you.

The goose hisses.

The door creaks open again and a steward in full formal regalia,

Meaning he's wearing twice as many buttons as any man should,

Enters holding a scroll.

He unrolls it dramatically,

Revealing your schedule for the day.

One ceremonial yawn,

Two contemplative sighs,

Breakfast with the royal cousins,

And a nap evaluation to be completed before sunset.

Your sleep quality will be rated by His Majesty's Committee of Somnolent Advisors,

He says.

Please record any dreams you may have had involving foxes,

Feathers,

Or sin.

You nod,

Wondering if the dream about the jellyfish counts.

He doesn't wait for clarification.

Once he's gone,

You sit back on the bed.

The mattress emits a suspicious squelch.

The goose eyes you.

You think about your own bed at home,

Simple,

Flat,

Unscented,

And unlikely to contain political commentary.

But here,

In this room,

Where even the fire seems to judge you,

Your rest is an act of diplomacy.

You shift slightly to the left,

And a tiny voice under the blanket mutters something about penance.

You freeze.

The mattress crunches again,

Coins shifting,

Paper rustling,

Dreams praying beneath you like saints who overslept.

You lie down.

You close your eyes.

You try not to bounce.

You're sitting in a chair that's technically a throne,

But only for consultation purposes.

It's a little too short,

A little too damp,

And definitely smells like someone once ate a pear here and never apologized.

Around you,

The royal nap council assembles,

Each shuffling in with the slow,

Ceremonial pace of people who believe time itself is watching.

You've been invited only as an observer,

Which is a polite way of saying they expect you to stay quiet and maybe hold a candle if things get dramatic.

The physician enters first,

Robed in layers of gray linen and pessimism.

He carries a pouch of herbs and a book that might be titled A Brief History of Mucus.

He clears his throat,

Which sounds like two frogs arguing,

And immediately launches into a monologue about humors.

Not the funny kind.

The body kind.

Yellow bile.

Black bile.

Something about warm spleens.

He concludes that the king's nap should occur precisely one hour after his second bowel movement or during the hour of intestinal grace,

Whichever comes first.

The astrologer follows,

Draped in stars or at least very shiny buttons.

He smells faintly of wax and poorly hidden anxiety.

He unfurls a chart the size of a sail and begins explaining how Mercury's quarrel with Saturn indicates a troubling napping window.

The moon,

Apparently,

Is being petty.

Venus is napping,

Too,

And it would be rude to overlap.

He recommends a fifteen-minute rest at dawn,

Facing northeast,

Surrounded by three unripe apples in absolute silence.

Everyone nods.

Like this makes sense.

The bishop enters last,

Late on purpose.

He carries a scroll,

A candle stub,

And the look of a man who has not slept properly since the last coronation.

His voice is low and reverent as he insists the king's nap must be preceded by confession,

Five blessings,

And a hymn sung backward by someone recently widowed.

It's not about sleep,

He reminds the room.

It's about humility.

The astrologer rolls his eyes so hard you can hear it.

The fourth advisor is already in the room,

Sitting cross-legged on the floor and feeding crumbs to a beetle.

No one knows his real title,

But he's referred to as the goose strategist.

Years ago,

He reportedly beat a goose at chess during a diplomatic summit.

He has since been invited to all state matters involving patience or poultry.

He doesn't speak often,

But when he does,

Everyone listens with the same mixture of fear and fascination reserved for thunder and very large wheels of cheese.

He clears his throat.

The beetle pauses.

He says,

Plainly,

That the king should nap when he is tired.

There is silence,

Deep,

Profound,

Spiritual silence.

The bishop makes a small choking sound.

The physician clutches his herb pouch like it might flee.

The astrologer looks at the stars on his sleeve as if they've betrayed him.

The council immediately begins arguing,

Loudly.

The physician accuses the astrologer of promoting chaos.

The astrologer accuses the bishop of fear-mongering.

The bishop accuses the beetle of witchcraft.

Someone bangs a spoon against a lute for order.

The air grows thick with incense and passive aggression.

You are handed a scroll and asked to document this session.

The scroll is already covered in someone else's scribbles,

Mostly diagrams of noses.

You begin writing anyway,

Unsure what counts as important.

The phrase,

Ritual yawning,

Comes up at least twice.

So does blanket authority.

No one laughs.

An hour later,

The king arrives.

He looks tired in the way only kings can too many rings,

Too many layers,

Too many decisions about whether dreams count as political statements.

He listens to the council with a face like old bread.

When they finish,

He nods,

Thanks them all solemnly,

Then turns to you and asks,

Where the sun is?

You point vaguely toward a window.

He lies down on a nearby bench,

Sighs once,

And falls asleep immediately.

The council looks stunned.

The bishop crosses himself.

The astrologer scribbles a note.

The goose strategist smiles faintly and offers the beetle a crumb.

The meeting is adjourned.

The nap,

It seems,

Has begun without permission.

At sundown,

They begin to arrive,

One by one,

In pairs,

Sometimes in clusters like pigeons pretending not to be organized.

They don't knock.

They don't speak.

They enter the king's chamber like it's a stage,

And the performance is always the same.

The sleepening.

Act XVIE.

You're seated on a low stool by the fire,

Allegedly as an observer,

Though no one seems quite sure who invited you or if you're part of the ritual.

You're holding a ceramic mug of something hot and questionably herbal.

It smells like fennel and mild guilt.

The first two through the door wear identical expressions and very different shoes.

They approach the bed without hesitation,

Lifting the sheets with the solemnity of men unveiling a relic or a mistake.

One pats the mattress gently,

As though comforting it after a long day.

The other mutters,

Still damp,

Before disappearing into the hallway to find newer,

Less disappointing linen.

No one acknowledges this.

The king,

Reclining in a chair nearby,

Sighs but doesn't open his eyes.

A third person enters,

Strumming a lute with three strings and no urgency.

Her voice is breathy,

Like someone singing directly into a bowl of porridge.

The song is about sleep or birds or perhaps a metaphor about moral cleanliness.

It's hard to tell.

She sways gently as she plays,

Eyes closed,

Unaware that her cloak is slowly catching fire from the hearth.

You point.

A maid scurries over and bats it out with a pillow,

All without breaking eye contact with the king.

Next come the prayers,

Three clergy in muted tones,

Each representing a slightly different angle on divine approval.

One whispers in,

Latin.

One hums a dissonant chord and the third simply nods at the ceiling as though God owes him money.

They kneel,

Chant,

And make strange shapes in the air with their fingers.

It's either sacred geometry or an elaborate shadow puppet about geese.

The bishop from earlier stands in the doorway,

Watching but not participating.

He's holding a spoon.

No one asks why.

And then,

Inevitably,

The bell arrives.

Carried by a boy no older than nine,

The bell is large,

Dented,

And smells faintly of fear.

He walks in a circle,

Ringing it three times in each corner of the room.

This,

According to tradition,

Frightens away bad dreams,

Wandering spirits,

And anyone who still believes in rational bedtime.

The king doesn't flinch.

He simply raises one hand and the boy vanishes as swiftly as he came,

Dragging the bell behind him like an old grievance.

Now the room is dim.

The fire has settled into a sullen glow.

The bed,

Freshly reassembled with proper linens and a cedar-scented bolster,

Stands ready like a very polite threat.

Two footmen approach,

One with a tray of steaming water for the royal feet,

The other holding a small glass vial labeled Night Thoughts,

Mild.

The king declines the vial with a grunt,

But accepts the footbath with the tragic grace of someone used to being pampered,

But never surprised.

You watch as a woman you've never seen before approaches with a single feather and dabs it along the edge of the mattress.

You assume it's ceremonial.

She winks at you,

Then leaves.

No one reacts.

You don't ask.

At last,

The king rises.

He is already in his sleep robe,

Which is lined with fox fur and embroidered with something that might be poetry or just a list of cheeses.

He does not speak.

He merely climbs into bed,

The covers pulled back by two people wearing gloves and matching expressions of humble anticipation.

Once in place,

The blanket is drawn up to his chin with the kind of precision usually reserved for folding maps or concealing scandal.

A.

Scribe steps forward,

Records the exact moment of tucking,

And retreats without a word.

The final visitor is a woman who walks the perimeter of the room,

Dropping rose petals and muttering about destiny.

She places one petal on the king's forehead,

Another on his foot,

And a third on the windowsill.

Then she blows out a single candle.

Darkness seeps in like an obedient dog.

The door closes.

You sit by the hearth,

Now barely warm,

Holding your mug of herbal uncertainty,

And watch as the king's breathing evens out into the soft,

Rhythmic grumble of a man sleeping under the weight of history,

Responsibility,

And at least six layers of aggressively monogrammed bedding.

Somewhere in the hallway,

The bell rings once more,

Just in case.

You stand at the edge of the royal bed,

Staring at it like it's just asked you a riddle and offered you a fish.

It looms in the center of the chamber,

Plump and silent,

A mountain of velvet,

Feather,

And things that should probably not be included in furniture.

Someone has folded the sheets with military precision.

There's a single sprig of rosemary on the pillow,

As if the bed might get hungry mid-nap.

The chambermaid beside you is small and wrapped in so many layers of wool she could easily be mistaken for laundry.

She leans in close,

Breath smelling faintly of mint and ominous folklore.

Moan once for good,

She whispers,

Twice for less good,

Three times if you feel spiritually uneasy.

You nod,

And she steps back as though you've been marked for something solemn or flammable.

This is your job tonight,

Official bed tester to his majesty,

Which sounds noble until you realize it mostly involves lying down and not dying.

You're not allowed to speak,

Not even a whisper.

The king believes voices leave echoes in the linens.

Echoes,

He claims,

Steal dreams.

The court debated this once and came to the conclusion that he might be right,

Mostly because no one wanted to test the theory in front of him.

You remove your shoes,

Which are already damp,

Possibly from the weather,

Or possibly because the corridor leading to the chamber had suspiciously squishy tiles.

You climb onto the mattress,

Careful not to disturb the rose petals still scattered from last night's petal ritual.

They crunch faintly under your elbow.

The mattress sighs.

You lie down slowly,

Trying not to bounce,

Though it's difficult because the bed has layers.

It's not just one surface.

It's strata,

A mattress sandwich with fillings that range from plush down to something that might be hay or the idea of hay.

Beneath you,

Something shifts.

It could be a spring.

It could be a mouse.

You wriggle,

Just a bit,

Nothing aggressive,

A mild exploratory wiggle.

You shift to the left and land on something round and firm.

You shift to the right and discover the whisper of a prayer stitched into the sheet with silver thread.

The pillow cradles your head like it's unsure whether you deserve comfort or confrontation.

The maid coughs gently.

You realize you haven't moaned yet.

You let out one sound,

Soft and low,

Trying to keep it neutral.

The bed is fine.

Possibly.

Probably.

You wait.

She tilts her head.

Was that one or two?

She mouths.

You moan again.

Once,

Deliberately.

She nods,

Pulls out a scroll,

And scribbles something with a quill the size of your forearm.

Then,

Something beneath you shifts again.

You freeze.

It's subtle,

Like a breath or a threat.

You roll slightly and feel it a lump,

Firm,

Oblong,

And disturbingly warm.

You press gently.

It makes a noise.

Not a human noise,

Not quite,

But not not human either.

You glance at the maid.

She raises an eyebrow.

You moan twice.

She frowns.

Lump?

She mouths.

You nod.

She writes Lump on the scroll,

Then underlines it twice.

Then she steps back further,

Toward the door.

You shift again.

The lump seems to move with you,

As if reluctant to let go.

You moan a third time,

Slowly,

With feeling.

The chambermaid gasps.

She drops the quill.

Three moans.

She sprints from the room.

You are now alone in the royal bed.

With the lump,

You lie very still,

Hoping that maybe if you don't move,

Neither will it.

But it pulses,

Not in a monstrous way,

Just in a way that suggests it has opinions.

You try to rise,

But the blankets are heavier than expected,

Like they've absorbed all the secrets of every royal nightmare and are now reluctant to release them.

The candlelight flickers.

The room creaks.

Somewhere outside,

The bell rings once.

You moan a fourth time,

Instinctively.

Too late.

The lump shifts again,

And then everything goes still.

The king's first sleep begins as a sigh,

A slow exhale of velvet and ceremony,

Tucked beneath layers of ritual and goose-feathered certainty.

The room dims around him,

Not from magic,

But from sheer deference,

As if even the torches know better than to burn too brightly in the presence of a man about to nap under divine sanction.

You sit by the brazier,

Watching the flame roll its eyes.

Fifteen minutes in,

He wakes.

No one speaks.

The attendants rush in like a stage crew mid-show change.

A towel is brought,

Slightly damp but warm.

A basin appears with water infused with rosemary and crushed anxieties.

The king washes his hands like he's trying to remove a memory,

Then his face like it owes him something.

He dries with a cloth embroidered with an image of himself sleeping.

You're not sure if that's ambition or prophecy.

A servant approaches with a small silver tray.

One radish sits in the center,

Glistening with dew or perhaps anticipation.

The king eats it whole,

Chewing slowly.

The crunch echoes through the chamber with the solemnity of thunder in a cathedral.

Then comes the prayer.

The chaplain arrives half asleep,

Robes on backward,

Muttering a blessing meant for chickens.

He corrects himself mid-sentence,

Turns his stole around,

And begins again.

The king bows his head.

The room holds its breath.

You stare at the ceiling,

Which is painted with stars arranged in blest,

Constellations that seem oddly judgmental.

After that,

It's time for second sleep.

He lies down again,

This time with less ceremony.

Just a nod,

A brief grunt,

And a rearrangement of limbs that suggests he's negotiating with the bed.

You're handed a small bell and told to ring it if he starts levitating.

No one explains why that's even on the table.

He dozes.

This one is deeper.

His breathing changes,

Slows.

A wrinkle in his brow smooths.

You think he might actually be dreaming,

Though whether it's of peace,

Ducks,

Or a tactical error in the battle of Slightly Moist Hill,

You cannot say.

His fingers twitch.

His foot jerks once.

A whisper escapes his lips,

Bertram,

Before he falls silent again.

No one in the room is named Bertram.

You shift in your chair and try not to make noise.

Your foot bumps the leg of a table,

And a spoon falls off with a clatter that sounds like a kingdom collapsing.

Every head turns.

You freeze.

The king stirs,

Frowns,

Then mutters something about bread.

A steward makes a note.

Twenty-three minutes pass.

He wakes again,

This time with purpose.

He sits up,

Eyes wide but unfocused,

Like someone searching for meaning in a dream they're still partly inside.

He points at the window.

Too much blue,

He says,

Though it's night and entirely black.

A servant nods,

Draws the curtain,

And says,

Of course,

Your Majesty.

He stands.

Another basin appears.

This one has floating thyme leaves and what you're almost certain is a pearl.

He doesn't wash this thyme.

He just stares into it like it might confess something.

Someone hands him a tiny book titled Acceptable Thoughts.

He flips through three pages,

Closes it,

And whispers,

No.

It's taken away.

Then silence.

He stands by the bed,

Eyes closed,

Swaying slightly.

A candle flickers near his elbow,

Unnoticed.

You wonder if this is the moment before third sleep or if you're witnessing a royal malfunction.

A page tiptoes forward with a blanket.

The king takes it,

Wraps it around himself like a disappointed shepherd,

And lies back down.

No words,

No ritual,

Just gravity and weariness.

Third sleep begins.

This one is the longest.

His face relaxes completely.

His breathing softens into the kind of rhythm that makes you feel like you're intruding on something private,

Ancient,

And vaguely agricultural.

He murmurs something halfway between a command and a lullaby.

You catch the word ducks and nothing more.

You settle back into your chair,

The bell still in your hand,

And wonder when you're allowed to sleep,

Probably after the fourth radish.

You're holding what might be pajamas or possibly a punishment from a fabric sorcerer.

The sleeves are long enough to touch your knees,

The buttons are made of actual pearls,

And the collar has lace so stiff it could be used in fencing.

A tag stitched into the back reads,

In very neat script,

For dreams of state and occasional hauntings.

You're not sure if it's a joke or a warning.

The wardrobe stands open behind you,

A monolith of cedar and soft groaning hinges,

Revealing a nighttime collection that would put most operas to shame,

Silks embroidered with prayers.

Robes dyed in colors that no longer exist,

A onesie made entirely of chain mail.

Everything smells faintly of lavender and ambition.

The king stands beside you,

Barefoot,

But otherwise already wearing most of his ceremonial sleeping gear.

Over his linen undershirt,

A breastplate,

Polished and inscribed with the names of several moderately successful ancestors.

His gauntlets clink faintly as he lifts a goblet of warm spiced milk.

The bishop watches approvingly from the corner,

Nodding every time the armor squeaks.

They come in dreams,

He murmurs,

More to the shadows than to you,

The envy spirits,

The slumber thieves.

They slip through the cracks of sleep and steal legacy.

The queen,

Reclining on a fainting couch shaped like a lion that has clearly given up,

Rolls her eyes and fans herself with a slipper.

He just doesn't like feeling vulnerable,

She says,

Says if he dies in a dream,

He wants to die standing.

The cook appears,

Breathless,

Holding two thick wooden planks.

Reinforcements,

He mutters,

Already crawling beneath the bed.

The last time he wore the greaves,

The mattress gave up and the floor asked for mercy.

You try slipping into the royal sleepwear designated for guests of minimal importance but significant curiosity.

The sleeves itch immediately.

The wool is coarse,

As if it resents being touched and you're almost certain the seams are whispering.

A row of pearl buttons runs from neck to navel,

Impossibly close together,

Each one needing a specific angle and probably a prayer.

You fasten three and give up.

The pants are worse tight in all the wrong places and loose in a way that feels accusatory.

The chambermaid helps,

Her fingers deft and utterly indifferent to your personal dignity.

This pair belonged to the last taster,

She says,

Then clarifies,

Of dreams,

Not food,

Though honestly,

Same difference.

You thank her.

She does not respond.

The king adjusts his gorget and asks if the pillows have been blessed yet.

The bishop hurries forward,

Muttering something in Latin while sprinkling water from a flask labeled Mostly Holy.

A monk wearing a nightcap rings a small bell and scatters dried rose hips across the bed,

Declaring them emotionally fortifying.

The queen pretends to sleep through all of it but peeks through one eye.

The king finally climbs into bed,

Clanking like a knight who lost his horse and his sense of proportion.

The sheets groan.

The mattress sighs with the weight of duty and steel.

He lies flat,

Arms crossed like he's expecting judgment.

Sleep is a battlefield,

He says softly.

You,

Still itchy and mildly panicked,

Lie down on a much smaller cot nearby.

It is filled with straw or possibly shredded tax records.

The wool of your pajamas begins to bunch in strange places,

Forming small mountains of discomfort.

You shift.

A pearl button presses directly into your sternum like it's trying to ask a question.

The candle dims.

The bishop withdraws.

The queen finally sighs and removes her tiara,

Placing it in a bowl of salt to keep the dreams light.

Somewhere outside,

A nightbird calls.

The king responds with a low hum,

As if challenging it to a duel.

You stare at the ceiling and wonder what it says about a man who feels safest wrapped in metal while unconscious.

Maybe it's about control or prophecy,

Or maybe he just likes the way it rattles when he breathes.

You scratch at the wool and try not to think about the fact that the pearl buttons are said to represent the tears of the last dynasty and that only two were ever removed.

You lie still,

Eyes open in the dark,

Pretending to sleep in a way that feels increasingly like performance art.

The cot creaks beneath you every time you shift,

So you've stopped shifting.

Your left leg is numb.

Your right leg is suspicious of the blanket.

Somewhere above you,

The king breathes like a man negotiating terms with a ghost.

The door doesn't creak.

It exhales.

A servant enters,

Slippered and silent,

Carrying a brass tray with a single candle flickering like it knows something you don't.

He places the tray on a small table near the king's bed,

Carefully uncorking a bottle of wine with the slow reverence of someone who's been scolded about it before.

He pours,

Pauses,

Sniffs the air,

Then disappears into the shadows again.

The candle stays.

Moments later,

Another one arrives.

This one's smaller and wearing a cap shaped vaguely like a fruit.

She adjusts a pillow with such exaggerated delicacy it feels theatrical,

Like she's being judged on form.

She fluffs it three times,

Presses it once,

Then steps back and whispers something toward the headboard.

No one answers,

But that doesn't stop her.

The whispering continues.

You're not sure who they're talking to or why,

But it spreads.

Whisper to the coals,

Whisper to the curtains,

Whisper into the lock of a cabinet that hasn't been opened in 37 years,

But still receives nightly updates about the state of the kingdom.

A third servant arrives,

Looks around,

Sighs deeply,

Then places a single sprig of mint in the king's shoe.

No one stops him.

You suspect no one even knows why anymore.

You close your eyes,

Briefly,

Hoping to signal passivity.

It does not help.

A hand touches your shoulder.

You jolt slightly,

But stay silent.

The hand retreats,

Satisfied.

You hear the rustle of parchment and realize someone is leaving notes by the bed,

Not on the bedstand on the bed itself,

Slipped under the edge of the pillow like fragile,

Dangerous secrets.

You see one catch the light.

It says,

He knows.

Another one follows.

It says,

Maybe bacon?

The king murmurs in his sleep.

His lips move.

You hear something that sounds like traitor,

But it could also be truffle.

The room shifts,

Just a little.

The candle flares.

A servant crouches by the window and mutters a report into the hinges.

Another kneels beside the bed and rebuttons a button that wasn't undone.

A spoon clinks faintly in a bowl that was not there five minutes ago.

Someone's humming now.

It's soft,

Tuneless,

But oddly familiar.

You think it's the same melody the queen was whistling earlier in the day while arranging her wigs by mood.

The tune winds its way through the room and for a moment everything seems to synchronize.

The fire crackles in rhythm.

The king exhales on beat.

A moth flutters past your face in time with the harmony and then vanishes as if ashamed of being noticed.

You hear the bishop's voice outside the door.

A low chant.

Not quite Latin.

Not quite meaning.

The servants bow their heads for three seconds then resume whispering.

One is now dusting the corner of a tapestry you're pretty sure depicts a war no one won.

Another is rearranging the arrangement of fruit on a plate so the pairs look less dominant.

You try to sit up.

A servant immediately places a cup of water near your hand without looking at you.

The cup is warm and slightly salty.

You do not ask why.

The king mumbles again.

This time it's louder.

Beware the hound he says or possibly where's the ham.

Two servants nod solemnly.

One leaves the room with urgency.

The other tucks the blanket tighter around the king's knees like they hold the truth.

The candle flickers again throwing long uncertain shadows across the wall and for a brief moment you see a reflection of yourself that looks more tired than you feel.

You lie back eyes open.

The room breathes.

The servants whisper and the night goes on as it always does too quiet to trust too loud to sleep.

You're staring at a candle stub melting onto a plate shaped like a miniature knight's shield when the bell chimes.

Not a loud bell but a hesitant one.

A bell that feels unsure of its own authority but it rings all the same and everyone in the room freezes like they've just been caught plotting something poorly.

The king opens one eye slowly dramatically the kind of eye opening that has been rehearsed in mirrors.

He does not blink.

His fingers twitch.

Then still the bishop rises from his seat near the foot of the bed and clears his throat with the ceremonial severity of someone about to say something both nonsensical and binding.

It is now three minutes to curfew he says.

Position yourselves.

Servants materialize from pockets in the room you hadn't noticed before.

One rolls out a carpet that seems exactly the same as the floor beneath it.

Another lights a taper extinguishes it then lights it again for symbolic reasons.

The queen looks up from her embroidery today.

It's a depiction of a fox being chased by debts and raises an eyebrow.

Don't they usually wait until it's at least one minute?

She murmurs.

The bishop pretends not to hear.

You remain in your cot unsure if standing is respectful or punishable.

A chamberlain hands you a horn not to blow just to hold apparently.

You grip it awkwardly as a page counts down the seconds with the gravitas of someone diffusing a very slow bomb.

Five Four Three The room inhales.

Two One Now.

The king sits bolt upright.

His eyes are wide his hair perfect and his night armor gleams faintly in the candlelight.

He stares at nothing or maybe everything as if waiting for applause.

He gets it.

Every person in the room claps precisely three times.

No more.

No less.

Polite.

Synchronized.

Haunting.

The king does not move.

He stays upright hands on his knees breathing in a way that suggests he's read too many dramatic poems about storms.

A servant adjusts the curtain even though it's already closed.

Another removes a single grape from a bowl and eats it as though it were evidence.

This is the bed curfew a sacred time bracketed by the moon's angle the tides of invisible rivers and the direction the stable master's cat happened to glance during supper.

Earlier someone sneezed near the chapel which apparently bumped the window by 17 minutes and required a recalculation using beads chalk and emotional guesswork.

You asked once just once if maybe the king could sleep a bit longer if he felt like it.

A monk dropped a plate.

A jester wept.

The queen patted your hand and whispered We tried that once.

There was a drought.

Now the king speaks.

Have the bells tolled thrice?

He asks.

The bishop bows.

Once fully once partially and once in spirit your majesty.

Then I am risen.

The king intones.

No one points out that he was already risen or that he'd only been asleep for what might generously be called a nap with aspirations.

The royal chronologer steps forward and records the moment on a scroll made of pressed duckweed.

The queen returns to her embroidery now adding a very small crown to the fox.

The room begins to exhale.

Someone brings a tray of warm milk for everyone except you which feels both intentional and wise.

The king finally shifts allowing his spine to settle into a shape less heroic.

A page removes one of his gloves with tongs.

The bishop begins humming.

You glance at the window.

The moon is almost sideways if that's a thing moons can be and it casts an accusatory light across the chamber floor.

Another servant closes the curtain again just in case.

The king lies back down.

Begin phase two.

He murmurs.

You don't know what phase one was.

You suspect no one does.

But everyone nods.

A candle is extinguished with a kiss.

A flute plays a single note.

Someone whispers something about taxes.

The king closes his eyes again and this time no one claps.

You're shown the queen's sleeping tower at dusk.

Just as the wind decides to pick up its pace and begins slapping the ivy in small repetitive tantrums.

The stairs curve in a way that feels passive aggressive and by the time you reach the top your knees are writing letters to your shins in protest.

The chambermaid with the soft voice and steel judgment opens the door with two fingers and a sigh.

The queen's bedchamber smells like honey mothballs and secrets.

Not in equal measure.

She's not there yet.

But the air knows she's coming.

Everything is too arranged.

Too precise.

Pillows fluffed just so.

Drapes tied back with ribbons that look suspiciously like rebranded battle sashes.

On the far side of the room a window glows from the moonlight that filters through an obsidian lens because apparently even the moon must be curated.

The bed is a generous shape wider than it is long and positioned at a sharp diagonal in the center of the room like it's mid-debate with the floorboards.

The sheets shimmer faintly either from embroidery or because they've been whispered to.

There are five blankets each representing a different emotion though no one will tell you which is which.

You assume the scratchy one is grief.

The queen enters not so much walking as declaring her presence through posture alone.

She carries herself like she's always on the verge of a monologue.

Her hair is braided with dried mint leaves.

Her robe is crimson and heavy and trails slightly behind her as though it,

Too,

Is exhausted by court politics.

She does not acknowledge you but you feel deeply acknowledged.

Her attendants float in behind her like polite shadows.

One lights a candle.

Another unlaces her boots.

A third presents a silver bowl filled with what can only be described as aggressively golden honey wine.

She swishes,

Gargles,

And then makes a noise that sounds like betrayal with vowels.

She spits delicately into a second bowl shaped like a duck and whispers a name into her pillow.

The name is Edmond.

You do not ask.

She flops into bed the way a swan might if it had been drinking and had strong opinions about inheritance laws.

She adjusts the pillow once.

Then again.

Then she throws it on the floor and selects another smaller,

Angrier looking one.

She curses into it.

Softly.

It sounds heartfelt.

A servant bows.

Will Her Majesty be requiring the lullaby tonight?

The queen snorts.

If I wanted to be lied to I'd attend council.

No one laughs but several people smile in ways that suggest they will bring this up in the kitchens later.

She stretches out diagonally perfectly bisecting the bed like she's proving a theorem.

A monk enters and adjusts the moon chart on the wall noting the position of Taurus and whether or not the stars have been acting suspicious.

Someone opens the window just a crack lets in a breeze then closes it again immediately.

Ritual satisfied.

A single bell chimes.

The queen closes her eyes.

Someone extinguishes the main candle with a feather.

The silence is immediate but not empty.

The chambermaid leans toward you and whispers it's romantic.

You nod.

You do not understand.

From somewhere below faintly you hear the king sneeze.

The queen opens one eye.

Too much cinnamon she murmurs and then finally sleeps.

Morning begins not with sunlight but with throat clearing an ancient theatrical kind long and musical like someone tuning a cello made entirely of irritation.

You're sitting in the corner of the king's chamber trying to look like a piece of old furniture when the dream interpreter enters.

He does not knock.

He drifts.

His beard is an ecosystem.

Tiny feathers nest within it some dyed some still twitching.

He wears a robe the color of unease and smells faintly of cloves and the kind of incense you light when you want to feel important.

He does not introduce himself.

He assumes you know.

Everyone assumes you know things here.

The king is propped up by two velvet wedges and the lingering weight of inherited mystery.

He blinks slowly and reaches for his goblet filled with something that may once have been wine but now resembles the memory of juice.

He drinks swishes sighs.

I dreamt of a goat he announces.

The interpreter bows at the waist a movement so smooth it seems detached from bones.

Flying or hovering?

He asks.

The king squints.

Flying definitely wings bat-like.

Also it wore a crown.

Murmurs ripple through the servants lining the wall.

You count six scribes each furiously documenting different aspects of this moment.

The temperature the angle of the king's knees the goat's wingspan.

One draws the goat.

You think she's added tiny boots.

The interpreter strokes his beard and a feather floats to the floor like a verdict.

And what was the goat doing?

Hovering above a field.

Then it sneezed and a village caught fire.

A pause.

Which village?

The interpreter asks already opening a scroll.

Hard to say.

There were turnips.

The interpreter's eyes widen slightly.

He pulls another scroll from his sleeve unfolds it with reverence and reveals a chart that looks like someone tried to play chess with a thunderstorm.

He hums points draws a small goat in the margins.

And after the fire?

The king leans back his eyes distant.

Someone shouted about taxes.

Then I was naked and trying to explain civic responsibility to a trout.

The interpreter gasps not loudly but with intent.

A classic symbol of renewal he whispers.

He turns to the bishop who nods without comprehension.

Then solemnly the interpreter speaks.

This is a dream of peace.

You blink.

No one else blinks.

The king nods relieved.

The scribes write peace in six different scripts.

One servant begins preparing celebratory toast.

Another brings a goose feather quill and signs something that looks suspiciously like a declaration of optimism.

You sit quietly and replay the dream in your head.

Flying goat.

Tax rebellion.

Flaming turnips.

Naked diplomacy.

Peace.

The interpreter now places both hands on the king's chest just above the heart and mutters in a language that seems mostly made of sighs.

Then he reaches into a pouch and sprinkles a handful of dried rosemary over the blanket.

The king doesn't flinch.

He just watches it fall like rain in a dream he hasn't had yet.

The goat.

The interpreter adds softly.

Chooses the dreamer.

The king beams.

You're not sure what that means.

But the room reacts as though he's just won a siege or pronounced the wheat taxes forgiven.

The queen's interpreter who has been lurking by the door in a quieter,

More judgmental robe scoffs and vanishes down the hallway in a huff of lavender and competitive symbolism.

The king yawns.

The dream has been interpreted.

The day may now proceed.

As everyone begins to shuffle out,

You linger.

The interpreter brushes past you and you catch the edge of another feather lodged behind his ear,

Small and gray and possibly from a bird that never existed.

He looks at you once,

Briefly.

You dream too loudly,

He says.

Then he's gone.

The silence is enforced with the kind of intensity usually reserved for revolutions and royal marriages.

You've been told politely,

Ominously,

Twice that noise after midnight is forbidden in this wing of the castle.

Not discouraged.

Not frowned upon.

Forbidden,

As if sound itself becomes treasonous once the sun has had enough.

The clock in the hallway chimes once,

Faintly,

Then explodes into a mechanical cough before giving up altogether.

Midnight.

Immediately,

The torches are dimmed to whisper and every candle is snuffed with the care of someone closing the eyes of a dying friend.

The mood shifts.

People walk slower.

Even the dust seems to float more cautiously.

You're in your cot,

Which is technically a glorified bench with ambitions,

Trying to balance your legs under a blanket made of decorative disappointment.

The bed creaks,

Like it's confessing something every time you shift.

You try not to breathe with enthusiasm.

You fail.

Outside,

A frog croaks,

Loudly,

Passionately,

Possibly in defiance.

From the shadows,

A servant appears and gently shakes a rattle wrapped in velvet.

A soft warning,

They call it.

The frog stops,

Or dies.

You're not sure.

You'd feel bad,

But the frog started it.

You roll onto your side.

The cot releases a groan that sounds like an old man remembering a bad investment.

Instantly,

A curtain flutters,

And a woman you've never seen before materializes beside you.

Her shoes make no sound.

Her expression suggests this is not the first groan she's punished tonight.

Stillness is the kingdom's lullaby.

She whispers,

Pressing a single finger to your lips and then vanishing again,

Like a fever dream with good posture.

You blink.

In the hallway,

An owl hoots,

Then hoots again,

Louder,

Like it's correcting itself.

Rude,

Someone mutters.

There is a brief scuffle.

Feathers drift by the window.

The owl does not hoot again.

Then comes the fart,

Not dramatic,

Not defiant,

Just consistent.

From the direction of the chapel,

It has rhythm,

Like someone attempting Morse code with poor judgment.

You hold your breath and wait for the inevitable.

Sure enough,

Two monks in sleep robes emerge,

One holding a brass bowl,

The other ringing it in slow,

Sorrowful chimes.

The bowl is for penance.

The sound is for shame.

No one speaks of the farter.

Everyone knows who it is.

You close your eyes and try to surrender to sleep,

But your cot has different plans.

It shifts under you like it's remembering old battles.

You hear a creak,

Then another.

You freeze.

A servant pokes their head through the door.

Their expression is neutral,

But their presence is aggressive.

Is it the cot or the soul that stirs,

They ask.

You don't answer.

They nod and leave a pine cone beside your bed.

You have no idea what it means.

A distant chicken sneezes,

Probably accidental,

Possibly political.

Someone in the next room coughs and immediately follows it with an apology.

The air feels tense.

Even the shadows look nervous.

Somewhere beneath the floorboards,

Pipes groan from centuries of poor planning.

You wonder if the king hears it from his gilded mattress or if someone simply lies beneath his bed all night,

Ready to absorb the noise into their body like a noble sponge of silence.

You turn your head slowly,

Cautiously.

The pillow emits the faintest wheeze.

Your door opens.

Two servants enter with a vial of scented oil and a bell made of glass.

Forgiveness,

One says.

Correction,

The other adds.

They dab oil on your forehead and place the bell on your chest.

It's cold,

Very cold.

You lie still and try to appear deeply unconscious.

Eventually,

The room empties again.

The wind rattles the shutters once,

Twice,

Then remembers the rules and backs off.

You breathe shallowly,

Like someone pretending not to cry during a toast.

The frogs do not return.

The owl has either repented or been relocated.

The farter,

Miraculously,

Has found peace.

You close your eyes.

The cot sighs beneath you.

And this time,

No one comes.

You are awoken by the sound of royal discomfort.

It's a specific kind of groaning less.

I stubbed my toe and more.

I have made a decision that will alter the fate of the kingdom and also my spine.

The king is missing from his usual perch of 24 embroidered pillows and an aggressively overstuffed mattress that moans like a cursed opera singer every time someone sits on it.

You find him outside,

On the ground,

Wrapped in what appears to be a flower sack and nestled in straw like a chicken that's lost its way in life.

Perspective,

He mumbles,

Face half buried in hay.

The royal physician is pacing nearby with the urgency of someone who believes a sneeze might change history.

The bishop has already fainted into a bowl of porridge.

One advisor stares at the sky like it has betrayed him personally.

Another simply writes,

This is how empires fall over and over on a parchment scroll.

The queen throws a spoon,

Not at anyone,

Just into the void.

It's for balance,

She mutters,

Before storming off to gargle honey wine and plot.

You inch closer to the king who looks surprisingly pleased with himself in the way only a man could be after sleeping in a barn he technically owns.

His beard has hay in it.

His nightcap is askew and looks more like a dunce hat than usual.

He waves a hand slowly like he's blessing a harvest.

Do you feel all right,

Your majesty?

Someone asks.

He blinks slowly,

Then smiles.

I have discovered truth,

He says.

There is a long pause where no one is sure if this is good or bad.

He stretches or attempts to.

His back pops like a small fire.

A servant winces.

Another offers him a damp cloth and a story about a noble who once tried something similar and was never heard from again.

It was humbling,

The king continues,

Now attempting to rise from the straw with the assistance of a broom and a peasant named Ulrich who happened to be walking,

Passed at the wrong time.

No bed curtains,

No hot stones,

No choir of monks humming the psalms of drowsiness,

Just earth,

Honest,

Scratchy,

Bitey earth.

Bitey?

The bishop asks faintly,

Regaining consciousness in time for the worst part.

Yes,

The king replies,

Casually scratching his leg with a look of enlightened misery.

It appears I have been blessed with the company of nature.

He holds up a flea between two fingers.

It bows.

Probably.

The queen returns,

Now armed with a goblet and an opinion.

You slept in a barn,

She says.

You're not enlightened.

You're itchy.

He shrugs.

I understand my people now,

He says.

I understand suffering.

I understand hay.

He sneezes,

Violently.

The royal astrologer,

Who has arrived late but dramatically,

Begins charting the sneeze on a vellum scroll.

This may align with Mars,

He says,

As if that will help anyone.

Later,

Back in the castle,

Servants scrub him with mint and vinegar while a line of physicians inspect him for rustic diseases.

He hums,

Still wearing the flower sack,

Which he refuses to return because it speaks to his soul.

You are handed a small box of salve and asked to apply it liberally.

He winces,

Then sighs.

I was brave,

He says.

You were itchy,

You reply.

Both can be true,

He murmurs.

The next night,

He returns to his proper bed.

Fifteen mattresses tall and fluffed by people who went to school for it.

But now,

He insists on a single piece of straw tucked under his pillow.

For grounding,

He says.

For humility.

You think he's forgotten what humility is,

But you tuck the straw in anyway.

And he sleeps like a man who's sure he's changed forever,

Even if he still snores like a drunken bell tower.

You're handed a goblet that smells like it's been steeped in medieval disappointments.

A thick,

Moss-colored liquid sloshes inside,

Thick as guilt and just slightly warmer than body temperature.

The sleep physician,

Who insists on being called Somnalius the Gentle,

Watches you with the reverence of someone unveiling a masterpiece or a crime.

For dreamless rest,

He intones,

Swirling his own cup with the flair of a magician who's too confident,

Balanced with valerian,

Soot of lavender root,

And just a whisper of eel bile,

A subtle note of anise,

For the bold.

You glance into the goblet and the goblet stares back.

Somewhere,

Deep inside,

Something bubbles unprompted.

You're assured this is normal and therapeutic.

The servant next to you dry heaves silently into a napkin.

You take a sip.

It tastes like betrayal,

Not the emotional kind,

The root kind,

Dirt,

Boiled socks,

And something vaguely cinnamon,

If cinnamon had been left in a drawer too long and developed opinions.

The king sips his calmly,

Seated on a throne made entirely of pillows,

Robes draped around him like a plush onion.

His version has a cinnamon stick and a lemon slice floating atop like someone tried to apologize with garnish.

He smacks his lips and nods.

Soothing,

He says.

Eyes already glassy.

You do not feel soothed.

You feel watched,

Specifically by the chamber pot in the corner,

Which seems to have shifted three inches closer while you weren't looking.

You blink.

It doesn't move,

But its handle now resembles a judgmental eyebrow and you're certain it just sighed.

You look away.

Somnalius claps his hands and begins humming an E minor,

Claiming the frequency enhances absorption.

A monk appears with a gong.

The gong is silent.

The monk is not.

He chants something about the spine being a river and dreams being boats or goats.

You're not sure.

The words are sticky and keep clinging to your forehead.

You try to lie down.

The bed feels like it's made of moss and decisions.

The pillow exhales beneath you,

Not in a comforting way,

More like it resents being involved.

Your limbs tingle.

Your ears feel bigger.

The tapestry on the wall starts whispering in French and you don't speak French,

But the tone is unmistakably gossipy.

You close your eyes.

Behind them,

Your brain begins projecting images you never ordered.

A choir of badgers,

A tax ledger that weeps,

The queen riding a giant beetle while reciting poetry about soup.

Your heartbeat plays a rhythm that sounds suspiciously like a tavern jig and your toes try to join in.

You open your eyes.

The chamber pot is definitely closer.

The king is snoring now,

Peacefully oblivious to the drama unfolding in your bloodstream.

A servant mists his forehead with rose water while another brushes his hair with a comb made of ivory and ambition.

He's glowing.

Literally.

It's unclear if it's spiritual or just a side effect.

You whisper,

Help,

But only the chamber pot hears you.

It winks.

Eventually,

The potion thins in your veins,

Melting into a soft,

Fuzzy numbness.

The badgers leave.

The tapestry returns to being judgmental in silence.

Your muscles release and the bed feels less like a dare and more like a suggestion.

You drift,

If not into sleep,

Then into something adjacent,

A floating.

You dream of moths folding laundry.

It's the most peace you've had all night.

In the morning,

The king rises refreshed,

Sipping mint tea like he hasn't betrayed every natural law of sleep.

He declares the elixir a triumph of modern medicine and nods to Somnalius,

Who bows with enough flourish to hurt his own back.

You're still blinking at the sun with one shoe on and the distinct sensation that your tongue is wearing a hat.

Somnalius offers you another goblet.

You decline.

The chamber pot,

Still watching,

Seems disappointed.

At exactly 2.

14 a.

M.

,

Bells do not ring,

Horns do not sound,

But something in the air shifts like the walls inhale.

It's the hour of the midnight confessor and the ritual is somehow both sacred and slightly awkward,

Like spiritual dentistry.

The priest arrives silently,

Barefoot,

With a candle balanced in one hand and a tiny stool in the other.

His robes are made of velvet and secrets.

You hear him before you see him,

Muttering psalms like he's trying to sue the cat.

The king is already semi-upright,

Hair tousled like a disgraced cherub,

Eyes squinting with the clarity of a man who's lived too long with too many opinions.

He gestures for you to leave,

But also to stay,

And you're too tired to interpret which,

So you simply slide further into your shadow and pretend to be part of the wall.

The priest sits beside the royal bed,

Crosses one leg over the other,

And leans forward like a gossiping ant with holy credentials.

His voice is soft but expectant.

The king exhales dramatically.

I once faked a headache to avoid a joust.

The priest nods,

As if he hears this sort of thing often.

The king continues.

It wasn't even a convincing one.

I just said ow and fell onto a cushion.

They called off the entire tournament and sent me pears.

I ate all the pears.

I still have the helmet.

The priest offers a slow blink of spiritual understanding.

I also may have replaced the bishop's wine with watered-down cider during the feast of St.

Wibbert.

The priest's head tilts,

Not with judgment,

More like he's mentally tallying how many Hail Marys that's worth,

Adjusted for ecclesiastical inflation.

The king pulls the covers up to his chin.

Sometimes I dream of throwing the crown into a well and running off to become a duck herder.

The priest places a hand on his heart and whispers,

We all dream of ducks,

Your Majesty.

There is a pause,

The kind that grows moss if you leave it too long.

Then the priest reaches into his pouch and pulls out a small ceramic flask.

Warm goat milk,

He says,

Steeped with thyme for the soul.

The king accepts it reverently,

Sips,

And sighs like he's just been forgiven by a dairy product.

A smile plays at the edge of his mouth.

You are beginning to wonder if confession is less about guilt and more about curated insomnia.

The priest leans in again,

More curious now.

And is there anything heavier,

Any burden that gnaws at you like a fox at the pantry door?

The king frowns thoughtfully.

Sometimes I pretend not to hear my advisers just to see how long they'll keep talking.

The priest does not react.

And I once told the queen that her new tapestry was inspired.

I did not clarify that I meant inspired by confusion.

The priest closes his eyes,

Perhaps to pray,

Or perhaps to picture the tapestry.

Forgive me,

Father.

The king mumbles,

Not quite meeting his gaze,

For I am very tired.

Then sleep.

The priest whispers,

Rising.

Forgiveness is often found between breaths.

He moves to leave,

But not before offering a final pearl of nocturnal wisdom.

Do not let the goats of shame trample the fields of your dreams.

No one knows what that means,

But it sounds incredibly wise at 2.

29 a.

M.

As the priest glides from the room,

Candlelight flickering behind him like the tale of a memory,

The king sinks back into his pillows with a small,

Milky smile.

You remain very still,

Unsure whether you're a witness,

An accomplice,

Or simply part of the furniture.

The room settles again,

And somewhere far below,

The chapel goat sneezes.

The scandal begins with a whisper,

Which,

Like most whispers in the castle,

Starts in the laundry chamber and ends in the throne room.

Passing through at least one pantry,

A suspicious-looking broom closet,

And the mouth of a footman who knows too much and dusts too little.

It's morning,

Barely.

The sky still wears its nightclothes.

You're brushing ash off your borrowed sleeves when the alarm is sounded,

Not with bells,

But with the loud,

Flustered exclamation of a chambermaid named Lotha,

Who storms out of the bedchamber holding what appears to be a mildly insulted blanket.

Flax,

She hisses,

Like it's a curse.

It's flax,

Not wool,

Not wool.

The hallway freezes.

A cup of barley tea trembles on a tray.

A pigeon turns back around.

Soon,

The astrologer is summoned.

He arrives in his usual gown of swirling constellations and very real stars,

Tiny,

Sharp,

And occasionally flammable.

He squints at the offending blanket,

Sniffs it,

And announces with great gravity that Mercury has entered a house it has no business being in,

And this is clearly the work of sabotage.

The bishop mutters about heresy,

The queen mutters about texture,

And the cook mutters into a bowl of oatmeal while quietly increasing the butter content.

You are invited to inspect the blankets yourself.

One is traditional wool,

Thick,

Scratchy,

Slightly judgmental.

The other,

Flax,

Smoother,

Lighter,

Suspiciously modern in vibe.

The contrast is stark,

Like comparing a stern nun to a slightly tipsy aunt,

Both warm,

Both well-meaning,

One clearly plotting something.

The king,

Meanwhile,

Remains nestled beneath both,

Snoring in the key of minor discontent.

He has not yet noticed the change,

Or if he has,

He's decided not to dignify it with wakefulness.

He looks peaceful in that fragile,

Too-still way that implies either deep sleep or contemplation of a coup.

By noon,

The castle is divided.

The linen faction,

Led by the queen's tailor and three bored cousins,

Argues that flax is breathable,

Fashionable,

And less likely to give one dreams about itchy farm work.

The wool loyalists,

Mostly shepherds,

Older nobles,

And a decorative goat named Bartholomew,

Stand firm on tradition,

Comfort,

And the sacred obligation to itch nobly in one's sleep.

At one point,

Someone tries to sneak in a velvet throw as a compromise.

The queen gasps.

The bishop nearly faints.

A servant covers the throw with a pewter plate like it's a scandalous relic.

In the middle of it all,

The king stirs.

He doesn't speak.

He merely rolls to his side,

Dragging both blankets with him in a sweeping diplomatic gesture.

He sighs long,

Theatrical,

And tinged with the kind of melancholy only monarchs and poets can pull off at 3 p.

M.

I dreamt,

He mumbles into the pillow,

That I was a biscuit.

The room pauses.

A biscuit?

The astrologer asks cautiously.

A large biscuit,

The king confirms,

Warm,

Crumbly,

Content.

No one knows quite how to respond.

The priest mutters a blessing.

The cook nods thoughtfully,

Perhaps making plans.

The flax blanket puffs slightly in pride.

Later that evening,

A royal decree is issued.

It states that the king shall henceforth sleep under both blankets as symbols of unity and balance,

And also because choosing is exhausting.

The wool is labeled the blanket of tradition.

The flax,

The blanket of enlightened curiosity.

Both are embroidered with the royal crest and a small,

Smiling biscuit.

You pass the queen in the hallway as she sips wine and glares at a tapestry.

It was definitely fashion,

She says without looking at you.

You nod,

Though you're not sure what she means.

Back in the bedchamber,

The king slumbers,

Tucked beneath layers of compromise.

The wool scratches.

The flax whispers.

Together,

They form a truce that rustles softly through the night.

Outside,

Bartholomew the goat eats a napkin in protest.

You see it the first night,

Sitting like a forgotten relic on the edge of the royal chaise lounge,

Slightly puffed,

Slightly smug,

As if it knows something you don't,

Which,

Frankly,

It does.

The embroidery is old gold thread in the shape of a lion with one eye closed,

As though it's either winking or has seen too much.

Someone's tried to clean it,

But the scent clings stubbornly.

Lavender,

Mildew,

And something you can only describe as treasonous.

No one touches it.

They clean around it like it's a royal ghost.

The steward dusts it with a feather that never quite makes contact.

The chambermaids avert their eyes when passing.

The jester,

Of course,

Tells you it's cursed.

He whispers it with glee,

Like a child sharing scandal,

Eyes wide and dancing.

It swallowed a duke,

He says,

Deadpan,

Before cartwheeling away with a squeaky horn and absolutely no clarification.

Later,

The steward corrects him.

It did not swallow a duke,

He says,

Folding linen like he's been personally offended.

It merely belonged to one,

The last one,

The one who fell off the balcony during a mild breeze.

He pauses,

While holding the pillow.

You ask if that's a coincidence.

He says the wind was unusually opinionated that day.

The cat,

However,

Loves the pillow,

A round,

Squishy thing named Monfort,

Who moves like he owns land and votes.

He pads over each night,

Makes an elaborate show of circling the lion three times,

Then settles in with a sigh that feels louder than the king's declarations of war.

No one stops him.

Even the bishop steps around him like the feline has diplomatic immunity.

One night,

In a moment of questionable courage and definite boredom,

You decide to sit next to it,

Not on it.

You're not unhinged,

But close,

Enough to maybe hear it whisper or emit smoke or demand your soul in exchange for eternal back support.

It doesn't do any of that.

It just sits there,

Innocently sinister,

Like it's waiting for someone to confess.

You lean in.

It smells older now,

Somehow,

More potent,

Like the memory of a betrayal that still echoes in the stone walls.

You think you hear a sigh,

Or maybe it's just the cat,

Who opens one eye,

Stares into your soul,

And flicks his tail like he's making a note of something.

You inch away.

The king enters moments later,

Robe trailing,

Crown askew like a man whose sleep is constantly interrupted by political obligations and dietary misadventures.

He says nothing about the pillow.

He never does.

He walks past it,

Climbs into bed,

And begins snoring as if it's a royal decree.

You ask the priest about it the next morning,

Over burnt porridge and a confused egg.

He only shakes his head and mutters something in Latin that might be a prayer or a recipe.

Some things,

He says,

Are best left unexplained,

Like the pillow or the queen's cousin who speaks only in riddles.

You consider moving it,

Just once,

Just to see,

But as you reach for it,

Monfort appears.

You didn't hear him come in.

No footsteps,

No creaking floorboard,

Just sudden,

Imperious feline presence.

He plants himself between you and the pillow,

Slow blinking like an assassin with velvet paws.

You retreat.

That night,

The pillow remains untouched.

The lion's embroidered eye seems more open,

Or maybe it always was.

The cat settles in.

The king snores.

The wind outside carries the faint echo of a laugh that may or may not be the jester.

In the morning,

You ask if you can change rooms.

The steward simply smiles and hands you a different pillow,

This one embroidered with a goat.

You're not sure if it's safer,

But at least it doesn't smell like betrayal.

Not yet.

There is frost on the king's eyebrows.

You try not to stare,

But it's hard when they sparkle like two confused snowflakes trying to unionize.

He's swaddled in twelve layers of wool,

A bear pelt,

And something that might once have been a rug.

No one knows why he insists on napping out here.

The balcony is narrow,

The wind is judgmental,

And you're reasonably certain a pigeon just tried to file a noise complaint against the royal snoring.

Still,

Here you are,

Holding a brass bell with no clapper because the sound was deemed too stimulating.

If the king stops breathing,

You're supposed to gently tap it against the stone railing until someone notices.

That's the plan.

That's the entire plan.

The steward calls it a tradition.

The queen calls it nonsense.

The king calls it invigorating,

Right before settling into his frost-covered chaise lounge with the determined optimism of a man who's never personally known hypothermia.

You shift your weight from one foot to the other,

Trying not to freeze solid in your borrowed boots.

The fur lining is mostly decorative and partially inhabited by something that might be alive.

You stop wiggling your toes in case it gets offended.

Across the courtyard,

A monk is pretending not to watch.

He's technically on candle duty,

But his candle hasn't been lit in half an hour,

And he's clearly using the flame to toast a chestnut.

When you catch his eye,

He shrugs.

You nod.

That's the kind of day it is.

The king shifts slightly,

A crackling sound rising from beneath him like a frozen parchment being unfolded.

One arm sticks out of the blanket pile,

Fingers stiff and noble,

Pointed directly at the sky as if challenging the clouds to a duel.

You consider saluting it.

Instead,

You tap the bell once for morale.

It makes a disappointing clink.

From somewhere inside,

Someone plays a lute with the emotional energy of a man who once lost a bet involving sheep.

The sound wafts out the window like a musical sigh.

The king does not stir.

A droplet of condensation slowly trails from the corner of his mouth and freezes mid-drip.

You watch it grow,

Hypnotized,

Until it forms what can only be described as a beard icicle.

You briefly imagine it winning a small award.

The physician arrives.

Wrapped in so many scarves,

He looks like an ambitious onion.

He kneels beside the king,

Places two fingers against the royal neck,

And squints.

Still noble,

He says solemnly,

Then disappears back into the castle without elaboration.

You wonder if this is a normal winter.

The wind smells faintly of rosemary and unresolved trauma.

A bird lands on the balcony rail,

Eyes the king,

And decides not to engage.

It flies off with what might be a judgmental squawk.

You envy its freedom.

Eventually,

The king sighs,

A grand,

Frosty exhale that sends a puff of steam into the air like a tiny storm cloud.

His eyelids flutter open.

He looks around,

Bleary but content,

As though the freezing of his nasal passages was a spiritual experience.

Bracing,

He whispers to no one in particular,

Deeply bracing.

You nod as if you understand.

He stands,

Or tries to.

The layers rebel.

It takes two footmen,

A prayer,

And an ill-timed sneeze from the astrologer.

But eventually,

The king is vertical and moving back inside.

You follow,

Bell in hand,

Feet numb,

Dignity frozen somewhere between your knees.

The steward claps once.

Everyone pretends this is normal.

You hang the bell on its hook and walk away,

Hoping for warmth,

Or at least tea that doesn't taste like licorice and despair.

Next week,

You'll be back on that balcony,

And the icicle beard might have a name.

The king begins his wandering just after the third bell,

Sometime between the astrologer's final chart adjustments and the castle owl's second complaint.

The guards don't speak of it openly,

But you notice how they grip their spears tighter once the moon reaches a certain angle,

Like they've been warned too many times not to interfere with a man in motion who's dreaming of the 14th century.

He doesn't announce his departure.

One moment,

He's snoring beneath seven layers of ceremonial wool and spiritual doubt,

And the next,

He's upright,

Barefoot,

And gliding across the stone floor like a noble ghost with unresolved cavalry issues.

Your job is to follow.

You were told this casually,

As if it was just another item between polish the goblets and don't insult the tapestry again.

The steward handed you a candle stub and said,

Gently guide him.

Don't wake him.

Definitely don't let him near the poultry.

Then he disappeared into a hallway that doesn't exist on any map.

Now here you are,

Candle in one hand,

Blanket in the other,

Stalking a king who moves like sleep has divorce time.

Tonight,

He heads east,

Murmuring names that sound like retired horses or forgotten cheeses.

Brindle,

Maxtrot,

Oatmeal.

His tone is wistful,

Like a man recalling lovers that were half horse and half metaphor.

You stay a few paces behind,

Just enough to avoid suspicion.

The king doesn't seem to register your presence.

Though once,

He pauses,

Tilts his head,

And whispers,

No,

That's not your bucket,

To a chair.

You nod.

It isn't.

The castle at night is different.

Walls breathe.

Candles flicker at odd rhythms.

Distant snores and murmured prayers bleed through the stone like echoes of a nap gone sideways.

A tapestry sways despite the absence of wind.

You pretend not to notice.

The king passes a guard who stiffens like he's being knighted by dread itself.

The king pats him on the shoulder and mutters,

You did your best,

Gregory.

The guard's name is Peter.

He doesn't correct him.

You nudge the king away from a staircase with the same energy you'd use to steer a goat away from a wedding cake.

He complies,

But not before pausing at the top and declaring,

The battle will be fought with spoons this time.

You bow in agreement.

Who are you to argue with sleep logic?

The poultry,

Unfortunately,

Have noticed.

Chickens in the courtyard begin to cluck in defensive formation.

You think you see the goose,

The one that hates everyone but especially the monarchy,

Its eyes narrow as the king approaches.

You interject swiftly,

Positioning yourself between man and bird,

Whispering something that sounds vaguely holy.

The goose retreats,

But only to regroup.

The king turns west now toward the queen's tower.

This is strictly off limits.

You've been warned.

Several times.

There are signs.

One of them is just a painting of the queen frowning.

You toss the blanket gently over the king's shoulders like a diplomatic offering.

He halts,

Tilts his head.

You smell like porridge,

He says,

Not unkindly.

He turns back,

Heading toward his chambers with the sleepy dignity of someone who believes he just attended a summit on dream treaties.

You follow,

Heart still pounding,

Candle sputtering like it's losing confidence in your mission.

When he reaches the bed,

He climbs in without a word.

The blanket you gave him stays on,

Though slightly misaligned.

He tucks one foot beneath a pillow and exhales so deeply it might qualify as a weather event.

Within seconds,

The royal snoring resumes,

Weaving through the room like a lullaby played on a broken accordion.

You sit beside the door until dawn,

Watching the hallway for movement,

Poultry,

Or anything else that might try to derail the kingdom's most mysterious midnight routine.

The rooster crows.

Somewhere in the distance,

A duck laughs.

The fire crackles with the same tired rhythm as your voice.

It's your third page of The History of Potatoes,

And the king is already dabbing his eyes with the corner of his sleeve like a maiden in a tapestry.

You're not sure what part got to him.

Maybe the paragraph about soil acidity.

Maybe the footnote about tuber shapes in wet climates.

Either way,

He's moved.

Or melting.

Possibly both.

You didn't expect to be the royal storyteller.

In fact,

You were just looking for the kitchens when a chamberlain plucked you from obscurity and pressed a book into your hands with a haunted whisper.

He prefers slow narratives.

Nothing too exciting.

No twists.

Nothing involving bears.

Then he disappeared down a corridor that didn't exist an hour ago.

Now you sit at the foot of the king's bed,

Knees tucked under a quilt that smells faintly of time and expectations,

Your voice echoing through the dim chamber like a librarian's ghost.

The king is swaddled in sleep robes,

Stitched with embroidered vegetables.

A beat on the collar.

A leak near the elbow.

He calls it his comfort harvest.

He nods at you to continue.

You clear your throat and begin chapter four,

The expansion of tuber cultivation in lowland marshes,

1,

200 and 11 to 1,

220.

It starts with a long list of farming methods and ends with a surprisingly aggressive anecdote about a monk who hoarded yams.

The king sighs softly,

His eyes glassy,

His expression somewhere between reverence and mild indigestion.

You pause to take a sip of lukewarm herbal tea,

Which tastes like dandelion and disappointment.

One of the attendants adjusts your chair by half an inch and nods solemnly.

You thank them,

Not because it helped,

But because they clearly needed it.

The story continues.

You read about potato blight,

Crop rotation,

And a local rebellion sparked by a poorly planned root festival.

The king wipes away another tear.

This,

This is the good part,

He whispers.

You nod,

Even though this chapter is mostly about the history of mulch.

Behind you,

The royal cat paces along the windowsill,

Tail twitching with the sort of disdain only possessed by animals who have personally witnessed monarchs snore.

It stares at you,

Then at the king,

Then disappears behind a curtain to curse your bloodline in private.

You reach the climax of tonight's tale,

A regional summit in which five noblemen argued for three days about storing potatoes in barrels versus baskets.

The tension is mild.

There's a chart.

The king clutches his blanket tighter.

He's fully reclined now,

The flickering firelight making shadows dance across his face like wistful root vegetables.

You lower your voice,

Adopting a reverent tone as you deliver the final line,

And thus concluded the 1,

220-planting season with yields surpassing even the estimates of Brother Ulrich,

Whose charts remain controversial.

Silence.

You close the book.

The king exhales through his nose one final trembling breath of starchy satisfaction.

That was exquisite,

He murmurs.

The part about the basket is very moving.

You bow slightly,

Unsure whether to thank him or offer a refund.

A servant enters and silently replaces your tea with a bowl of warm broth.

You're not supposed to drink it.

It's ceremonial.

You hold it anyway,

Like a trophy for surviving one of the slowest narratives in recorded history.

The king's eyes close.

He is not yet asleep,

But deep in thought,

Probably about storage methods.

You rise to leave.

A quiet nod from the steward,

A rare smile from the guard.

Even the cat offers a slow blink of reluctant approval before flicking its tail and vanishing again into the folds of nobility.

Tomorrow,

Someone else will read,

Possibly,

The evolution of mud bricks in northern settlements,

Maybe an incomplete guide to baskets.

You don't know.

But for tonight,

You were the voice that carried a monarch gently into the arms of tuber-induced dreams.

And that's not nothing.

The bishop declares it with the gravity of a man announcing a flood.

No sleep for two nights.

The king must remain awake,

Eyes peeled for divine signs,

Prophetic dreams postponed in favor of prolonged blinking and mood swings.

It's called sleep fasting,

An ancient rite from a scroll no one has seen,

Translated from a language that may or may not be real.

The bishop holds up the parchment like it bit him.

The king nods solemnly,

Even as his eyelid begins to tremble.

By midnight on the first night,

The royal court has the energy of a barn owl with tax problems.

Candles burn lower,

Shadows lengthen,

And everyone speaks with that syrupy slowness that makes even polite words sound like threats.

The king paces in circles around the great hall,

Muttering about the clarity of silence,

While his shoe catches on a tapestry and nearly sends him into a pewter bowl of jam.

You trail him,

Tea tray in hand,

Wearing the fixed smile of someone who knows this won't end in glory.

A musician in the corner plays one string on a harp every 20 minutes,

Claiming it helps with temporal awareness.

The rest of the room flinches with each note like it's a small slap from God.

At hour nine,

The king writes a poem about fish.

No one asks him to.

He announces it loudly,

Calls for ink,

And scratches it onto the back of a royal decree like it's his magnum opus.

It rhymes,

Barely.

He stares at it like it contains universal truth.

You read the line,

Gills like whispers in a lemon stream,

And choose to keep your feedback to yourself.

By dawn,

The queen is sleeping upright in a chair,

A thin string of drool connecting her chin to her collarbone.

The bishop slaps a brass triangle every hour to keep people alert,

But mostly it just startles the cat.

The jester begins quoting tax codes and laughing hysterically.

Someone's wig is on backwards.

No one mentions it.

You offer the king a nap.

He squints at you like you're speaking betrayal and fluent heresy.

If I sleep,

He whispers,

I might miss the message.

You nod,

Understood.

But if you don't nap,

You might start seeing messages in the curtains.

He thinks about that.

You both settle for tea.

It's the spiced kind,

Brewed with cinnamon bark and desperation.

It does nothing.

The king's eyes are wide but vacant,

The look of a man who's heard too many bells and now thinks in echoes.

By the second night,

Everyone is unraveling.

The steward walks backward and insists it's for balance.

A falconer starts whispering apologies to the chandelier.

The bishop maintains this is all according to plan,

Though his eye twitches every time the king recites the fish poem out loud,

Which he now calls the aquatic gospel.

Eventually,

The king begins seeing things.

He points at a bowl of apples and demands it stop judging him.

He weeps at the sight of his own foot.

He tries to knight a chair,

Then forgets why halfway through and scolds it for poor posture.

Still,

He refuses sleep.

You begin to suspect the visions aren't divine,

Just side effects of a nervous system filing complaints.

When he tries to eat a candle,

You gently redirect his hand and offer more tea.

He accepts it with the gravity of a monarch accepting surrender.

By sunrise of day three,

The bishop declares the ritual complete.

No explanation.

No vision.

Just a loud,

Satisfied declaration and a triumphant exit.

The king collapses into a chaise like a puppet whose strings were cut by someone angry at upholstery.

He snores instantly.

You sit beside him,

Sipping cold tea,

Watching a beam of light crawl across the tiles like it's seen things it will never speak of.

Someone begins,

Reading the fish poem aloud again.

You pretend not to hear.

The tapestry doesn't move so much as it exhales.

A little puff of old dust,

The scent of lavender and long-forgotten decisions.

You brush it aside,

Thinking you'll find a wall or maybe a draft.

Instead,

Your fingers find wood,

Then a handle.

Then,

Almost without permission,

The wall opens,

Not loudly,

Just enough to feel personal.

Inside is a room the size of a confession,

Small,

Hushed,

And clearly not on any official diagram.

There's a cot,

A single thin blanket that smells faintly of cinnamon and rebellion,

A stubby candle burned halfway down like it got bored midway through illumination,

And an orange,

Split in half,

Sitting delicately on a pewter plate like a peace offering between two very tired factions.

On the wall,

Scrawled in chalk above the cot's headboard,

Are five words.

Do not tell the bishop.

They are underlined twice.

The second underline trails off like the chalk got nervous.

You freeze in that soft and crumbling kind of silence that only ever exists in secret places.

There's a hum to the room,

Not of sound,

But of agreement.

This is not a room built for declarations or rituals or scrolls.

It's a place of surrender,

A little corner of human need carved into stone and hidden behind the grand noise of courtly things.

You glance behind you,

But no one has followed.

You shut the tapestry again,

Gently,

As though the wall might change its mind.

Then you sit on the cot.

It creaks the way only honest furniture does,

A sound that says,

Yes,

Yes,

I've held many.

The blanket is scratchy but familiar,

The kind of wool that once hugged a sheep with political opinions.

It has weight,

Which feels strangely like kindness.

You pick up the orange.

It's cool,

Freshly peeled.

Someone had planned to eat it and got distracted.

Or maybe they meant for you to find it.

Either way,

You eat it in silence,

Tasting citrus and secrecy.

There are no windows,

No bells,

No bishop,

Just you,

The cot,

And the memory of someone very royal needing a nap badly enough to hide from an entire castle to get one.

It occurs to you,

Slowly,

That the king must have used this room more than once.

The chalk is smudged.

There are indentations on the cot not shaped like you.

The candle is shorter than it should be for something untouched.

There's a teacup in the corner with a chip shaped exactly like the kingdom's You lie back.

The mattress isn't soft,

But it doesn't poke you with coins or pamphlets.

There are no servants fanning you with poultry,

No astrologers humming approval,

No whispered updates from the hallway,

Just stillness.

A stillness with its elbows on the table and its feet tucked under a quilt.

And just as your eyes begin to flutter shut,

You hear it.

A voice,

Soft,

Familiar,

Raspy with authority and sleep.

I never told anyone either,

Says the king.

He's standing in the corner,

Holding a second half of orange and wearing what can only be described as a robe of tactical avoidance.

He looks at the cot like it's a chapel.

Then he sits on the floor,

Cross-legged like a child hiding from homework.

This room,

He whispers,

Is older than my title.

You don't ask questions.

You just nod,

Mouth full of citrus,

Mind full of fog.

The two of you sit in silence.

No declarations.

No ceremony.

Just a candle,

A cot,

And the quiet understanding between two people who have both,

At some point,

Needed to disappear for a little while.

The king is ill and the castle has begun to unravel.

Not dramatically,

No flaming tapestries or hastily written wills,

But in a slow,

Passive-aggressive way.

The kind of unraveling that begins with silence and ends with someone crying in a pantry.

The halls are quieter now,

Except for the muffled,

Tectonic snores emanating from the royal bedchamber.

It sounds less like a man sleeping and more like a series of avalanches politely taking turns.

You're handed a mop with no instruction other than a condry,

Pitying glance from a chambermaid named Sibyl who mouths something that might be Godspeed or He Bit Me.

You're not sure which is worse.

Inside the room,

The air is dense with the scent of boiled herbs and existential fatigue.

Candles flicker in corners like they're reconsidering employment.

A bowl of something once medicinal festers on a stool.

It may have been soup.

It now looks like it resents you.

The king lies in bed,

Half buried beneath an impressive mound of fur blankets,

His nose red enough to qualify for sainthood.

His snores pause only to allow for phlegmatic declarations of injustice and doom.

At one point,

He mutters something about a treaty and sneezes hard enough to shift the drapes.

The jester is here,

Too.

He's wearing a hat that seems louder than necessary and is moving around the room,

Waving a bundle of sage like he's conducting an exorcism that keeps changing its mind.

He doesn't speak,

Just hums a note that may or may not be and glares meaningfully at the corners of the room as if illness might be lurking behind the wainscotting.

You begin mopping,

Or at least pretending to.

The floor is mostly dry,

But the mop gives you something to hold,

Something to aim your thoughts into.

You wonder what your life choices were that led to being a royal illness buffer.

You also wonder if the jester has any idea what he's doing or if he's just stalling for applause.

The king coughs,

Not delicately.

It's the kind of cough that makes birds startle three counties over.

A basin is thrust into your hands by someone you didn't see arrive and won't see leave.

You hold it with the grim reverence of someone catching rainwater in a teacup during a flood.

At some point,

The physician enters.

He smells faintly of vinegar and crushed hope and declares the king is suffering from an imbalance of winds.

You're not entirely sure what that means,

But it sounds like something you'd apologize for after a feast.

The physician offers a syrup made from garlic,

Honey,

And something he won't name.

The king throws it at a wall without opening his eyes.

Later,

The bishop visits.

He blesses the pillows,

All of them,

One by one,

Then prays over the mop,

Just in case.

You try not to make eye contact.

He whispers that sickness is a test of the soul.

You wonder why your soul is being tested by a puddle of someone else's sneeze.

The queen doesn't enter.

She sends a note that simply reads,

Again?

And a second one that says,

Tell him I'm in the east tower until further notice.

It smells faintly of rosewater and detachment.

Night falls,

Though the room remains unchanged.

The snores grow louder,

Deeper,

More philosophical.

The jester is asleep on a stool,

Clutching his sage like a teddy bear.

You sit on the floor,

Mop beside you,

And listen to the rhythm of a monarchy slightly unwell.

Somewhere in the corner,

A frog croaks.

You don't remember letting in a frog,

But no one else reacts,

So you pretend not to hear.

And as the fire crackles and the king wheezes something about grain tariffs,

You close your eyes just for a moment.

The sickness isn't yours,

But somehow you're part of it,

Part of the room,

Part of the care,

Part of the strange ballet of comfort and chaos.

You breathe in the scent of sage and soup and candle wax,

And you begin to hum along with the jester's forgotten tune.

The summons comes at dusk,

Wrapped in velvet and mystery,

Handed to you by a boy with a candle and a suspicious mustache.

He says nothing,

Just gestures with the solemnity of someone delivering a prophecy or bad soup.

You follow,

Through the south wing,

Past the room where nobody makes eye contact,

Around the hallway that always smells faintly of jam.

Tonight is the final sleep.

Once a month,

The king's entire schedule bends like a reed in the wind,

Except the reed is embroidered and the wind has a title.

Everything is rearranged,

Meetings canceled,

Trumpets silenced.

A goose that enormously greets him in the morning is politely asked to stand down.

This is not an ordinary sleep.

This is ceremony.

This is legend.

This is a performance with one audience member and twenty witnesses,

And somehow you're both.

In the preparation chamber,

He is being wrapped,

Not tucked,

Wrapped.

Layers of silk,

Lavender,

And something referred to only as ancestral thread.

You're not sure what that means,

But it looks expensive and mildly itchy.

A steward brushes the king's eyebrows.

Another polishes his slippers,

Even though he's not wearing them.

He eats plums slowly,

Like each one is a confession.

Juice glistens on his chin.

No one wipes it.

The queen sends a short note.

Don't wake him.

Not again.

It's underlined twice.

Before the sleep,

The king recites a poem to his own reflection.

It is about rivers and loyalty,

Although a stanza or two could be about soup.

The mirror says nothing,

Which is apparently a good sign.

He bows to it,

Once with dramatic flair,

Then turns to you and says,

Write this down,

Before promptly forgetting what he was about to say.

You do not write anything down.

A monk steps forward to hum.

That's his job.

Humming,

A single tone,

Vaguely in key,

Meant to guide the king's spirit into sleep like a foghorn in a night made of velvet.

A falconer tosses feathers in the air.

No one asks why.

Then comes the placement.

The royal bed has been remade six times.

You watched.

The first time was too crisp.

The second too casual.

The third had a lump described as emotionally jarring.

Now it looks perfect,

Like a nap written by a poet who's never been tired.

The mattress sighs as the king climbs in.

Not metaphorically.

It makes a noise.

Someone apologizes to it.

You are handed a quill and a piece of parchment and told to document anything unusual.

You ask what qualifies as unusual.

The steward replies,

A wink from the void,

A prophecy in crumbs,

Or if he snores the tune of the national anthem again.

You nod.

Like that answers everything.

The candles are dimmed to royal twilight.

The humming fades.

The king exhales a long breath that seems to carry the weight of minor treaties and one unresolved chess match.

He sinks into the bed like a jewel being returned to its velvet box.

His crown is removed,

Not with reverence,

But with care,

As if it might bite.

Then nothing.

For fourteen hours,

He will not speak,

Will not rise,

Will not demand a radish or throw a spoon at a tapestry.

His sleep is not restless.

It is complete.

A sleep that requires an audience and a title.

A sleep so grand it has footnotes.

You sit in the corner,

Scribbling things that sound important.

Twitch at 2.

14.

Whispers,

Possibly Latin,

Possibly about pudding.

You eat the rest of the plums when no one's looking.

At hour seven,

The cat arrives.

It curls beside the bed like it has jurisdiction.

At hour nine,

The jester peeks in and immediately leaves.

Even he knows this is sacred.

At hour twelve,

The bishop sneezes in the hallway and is exiled for the evening.

You,

However,

Remain.

You watch the king sleep under more fabric than most small nations could afford and wonder if this is enlightenment or just very fancy camping.

You consider starting a journal.

You start to nod off but catch yourself.

The parchment flutters.

The king shifts,

Sighs,

And smiles.

No one claps,

But they want to.

The bed is quiet.

Too quiet.

Not just absent of sound but vacant of everything.

No creaks from embroidered headboards.

No distant humming.

No subtle waft of time and vaguely medicinal herbs.

The royal linens are neatly folded at the foot like a forgotten truce.

The mattress holds no imprint of a monarch or memory.

You reach out to confirm its emptiness as if the king might have learned invisibility in the night or been folded into the bedding like a dignified towel.

No one's there.

You sit up slowly,

Joints surprised.

The air tastes like morning but unbothered.

No bells.

No chanting.

No frantic shuffle of slippers across stone.

No servants.

No priest tucking his notes into his sleeves.

No jester pretending to be a potted plant for reasons no one had the energy to question.

Even the cat is gone,

Which is unsettling because the cat has never willingly missed a nap or a scandal.

You check the window,

Expecting at least a trumpet or an argument.

Nothing.

Just sun,

Polite and gold,

Draping itself over the garden like it paid rent.

You rub your eyes.

Maybe you dreamt the whole thing.

Maybe you're in a different castle.

Maybe this is a trap.

Cleverly disguised as breakfast.

But the silence holds.

Not ominous.

Not grand.

Just.

.

.

Unfinished.

You find your shoes by the door,

Where no one has ever left them neatly before.

Someone's done you a kindness.

This unsettles you more than betrayal would.

You step into them,

Half expecting alarms to blare.

None do.

You open the door.

Still nothing.

The hallways echo gently as you walk.

The tapestries don't whisper.

The chandeliers don't tremble.

The suits of armor don't blink.

You pass the bishop's office.

It's empty,

Save for a half-eaten pear and a note that simply reads Tuesday,

As if even time has given up specifics.

You keep walking.

In the courtyard,

The cobblestones are warm.

The pigeons have reclaimed authority.

They waddle like officials.

And there,

Beneath the only tree that dares grow in the shadow of royal routines,

Is the king,

Sitting.

No throne.

No velvet.

No fanfare.

Just a bench.

Just a man in loose robes,

Holding a small spoon and a very tired-looking plum.

He sees you.

Smiles.

Not the formal smile of decrees and portraits.

The other kind.

The one that feels like finishing a sentence you didn't realize you were writing.

You've learned,

He says,

With the quiet confidence of someone who didn't.

You open your mouth to respond,

But stop.

Because you haven't.

Not in the way that makes sense,

With facts and timelines and solid explanations.

But something in your shoulders has loosened.

Something in your breath feels less borrowed.

Something in you knows what time it is without asking the stars or the cook.

So you nod.

Not because you know,

But because it feels like the right thing to do.

The king gestures toward the plum,

Offers it like a relic.

You decline.

He shrugs and eats it whole.

You turn.

You walk back through the halls,

Which now feel neither royal nor haunted.

Just halls.

You pass your old cot,

The one that always squeaked and smelled faintly of soap and ambition.

You pass the tapestry that once hid secrets and now only hides dust.

Your bed waits for you.

Not the king's.

Not the tester's.

Yours.

Lumpy in a familiar way.

Slightly crooked from too many uncertain nights.

You climb in.

No trumpets.

No ceremony.

You sleep.

And this time,

No one watches.