“Time for bed, princess!” trilled Mom.
Little Mia said, “Why?”
“So you can sleep, and have lots of energy tomorrow.”
“I don’t need sleep.”
“Of course you do, dear.”
Mia laid awake in her big-girl bed all night, wondering what sleep was and why everyone else did it so much.
This story was based on the prompt “what for” at TypeTrigger.
Mia will appear in Special People, my superhero-with-a-twist serial web fiction, in a future story.
I thought stasis would be like sleeping: I’d close my eyes on Earth, and open them a hundred light-years away. I thought it would be an escape.
But it was more like a dream, a slow swirl of half-reality. I spent ten years inside my own head, reliving that memory.
This story was based on the prompt “that memory” at TypeTrigger.
Sometimes when I fall asleep I see pictures moving across the back of my eyelids, strange pastel cartoons, usually, where a round-headed caricature of me is trying to escape from a cloud labelled “Future” or “Responsibility.”
My wife says that sometimes she can see the projector’s flickers behind my eyes.
When he wanted to stay in bed, he imitated a cozy blanket.
When he wanted to keep playing outside, he made himself look like a tree.
When he didn’t want to eat his broccoli, he blended into his chair.
Dad was usually fooled, but Mom could see right through it.
This story was based on a title suggested by @Vigafray.
He lived inside his phone, drifting from app to app and nesting in the dim recesses of the End Call button.
He’d been there since the rotary days. The passing years had drastically reduced his living space.
He had no idea how he’d fit his mattress into a Bluetooth headset.
“Eagor!” cried Dr. Frankensteve.
“What?” mumbled Eagor.
“I’ve invented a machine that allows people to stockpile sleep!”
“Sounds lame.”
“Silly nephew! Now students can sleep longer when they aren’t busy, and stay up all night when they are, with no side effects!”
(Then the author cried, because it wasn’t true.)
But seriously, wouldn’t that be great? Sigh…
“Finally!” complained Fluffy the cat in the softly exasperated voice of a young mother. “The kittens are down for nap time. All they ever do is eat, sleep, and whine!”
Mittens, her husband, mewed appreciatively. “What should we do with our free time?”
“Grab a snack and get some shuteye.”