snake of sleep

The great white snake of sleep uncoiled from where it was resting at the foot of the bed. It slid across the floor, its huge python body winding its way through our home and out the front door. It slipped under the next door neighbours’ front door, silently gliding into the room where they were awake, after midnight, watching the television. I could hear them laughing from where I was still lying, eyes closed, in my bed. I could see the ghostly snake with its big head and flickering tongue, as it moved up the back of the armchair and slowly wound its vast length around the ignorant body of the loudest neighbour. It curled up and around his body, gradually tightening its coils until the sleep came. In the following silence, the snake of sleep slipped back down onto the floor and slithered around the skirting boards of the apartment, under the doors and back into our bedroom. We heard the neighbours again, the volume up on the television. The python turned and wound its way, faster, back through the rooms to where the neighbours were laughing. This time, the snake coiled around one body, constricting firmly, and lowered its wide open mouth over the head of the other, swallowing him whole. Silence fell on their household as they fell asleep. The snake returned to our bedroom, looped its vast white form into a curl at the foot of the bed, and closed its eyes.