Bedtime Story: Weird Sleep Habits Of Medieval Peasants

This 3-hour sleep story is designed to help you fall asleep fast and stay asleep all night. Ideal for anyone searching for a sleep track, a long bedtime story for sleep, or a gentle sleep meditation for deep rest.

What if you found yourself in medieval times, not as a traveler, but as a peasant bound to the land, drawn into the humble and deeply human sleep habits of rural laborers? This second-person immersive narration places you inside a small wattle-and-daub cottage, settling onto a straw pallet after a long day in the fields, experiencing segmented sleep, the quiet pause of midnight wakefulness, distant livestock shifting in the dark, and the slow return to rest that shaped nightly life for peasants in the Middle Ages.

A soft, steady hearth fire crackles in the background, creating a warm and calming atmosphere throughout the story.

Told slowly and gently, this track is designed to keep your mind lightly engaged while helping your body relax, unwind, and drift into sleep.

Transcript

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 noblewoman 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,

Its 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 the 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 cousin-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,

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.

Crumbing 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 neighbor's 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 godforsaken 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 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 twenty 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 in 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 scratched 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 Saint 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 and were of the tanned.

In the tancer 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 seventeen 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 cancelled.

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.