I fucking hate this bastard. The Sleepeater. It's four in the fucking morning and I can feel him now.

You can't ever see the twisted little imp. No telling what he looks like, but I've got a good enough idea and so does anyone else that he's ever fucked with. Like a monkey on your back. Always behind you, to the point that you couldn't catch him in a mirror if you tried. I wish I could catch him. I wish I could catch him and beat the tar from his lungs.

But that's not going to happen. Don't get me wrong; I have had my share of sleepless nights just the same as anyone. The childish ones where you're so excited about Santa coming down the chimney you screw yourself and find out that it's always been your parents. The one where you tripped up and hurt yourself so bad the pain keeps you from sleep. Or the pain from illness. Same thing, just not your fault then. Or the sleeplessness that only fear can put into you, like the fear of an unplanned pregnancy or of losing your home.

But this fucker isn't any of those. He just sits there and eats all of the sleep you should be getting. No test anxiety or the sleeplessness of disease. No. Just his gluttony. the leftover useless bits of sleep dripping from the corners of his mouth as if he wasn't that hungry for them in the first place.

And I don't want to ever see him, because I have the feeling he's the kind of grotesque little bugger that would open his mouth just to show you all of the mashed and masticated ruins of your night crushed amongst his saliva. He'd be cruel like that because he knows you need this sleep. He knows you desire it as much as you wanted that first kiss. That first dollar. That first driver's licence.

The Sleepeater doesn't care, though. The dreams that could have been but are now gone forever. The lines and dark circles drawn around your eyes. The sucking lack of breath in your chest. And let's not forget how much your performance suffers the next day.

Does he do it because he needs to eat sleep? Or maybe my guess about him just doing it out of cruelty was right. This is the third night in a row he's been lurking behind me and I know that no amount of sex is going to drive him away. I'll just wear out my body then lie awake still. No amount of booze will wash him from my shoulders, and there's no way to take enough drugs to make him leave that wouldn't put me into a permanant coma.

You know what? I don't even care why he does it. It's not important anyway. There's only one unanswered question that grates on my nerves: How the hell, assuming I ever do get him to leave, do I live with the conscience that now he's fucking someone else up?

The Sleepeater doesn't care. He doesn't play fair, and he never will.