Not quite sure where this one came from but I think my Facebook post pretty much covers it.

The sleeper

  My name is Paul Harrison

  I’m a creature of habit.  You should know that about me.  I get up at 6.45 every morning.  No snooze button.  What’s the point of purposely disturbing your sleep when you can get more going straight through?  I put on my dressing gown, have breakfast, brush my teeth, get dressed drive to work (at Lester, Lester, Grout & Lester, the accountants), actually do some work, have dinner while keeping up-to-date with all the changes in the high-flying world of accountancy, work some more, come home have dinner watch my television shows (or TV if you prefer!) shower, cover myself in baby oil, masturbate, shower again, get my jammies on and am asleep by 10:10, usually.

  That’s my routine.

  Nothing disturbs it.

  Ever.

  I like that.

10:21.

  I open my eyes.  My boss (Grout jnr) is slumped at his desk.  A neat round bullet hole sits Squarely in the middle of his forehead.  It seems to be in direct contrast to the gigantic fragmented hole in the blinds and window behind which are matted with everything that contained Mr Grout junior’s consciousness.  The blood, assorted brain matter and skull fragments which are currently coating the blinds behind my former boss resemble a gory children’s collage.  In life he was an awful man, a bully and a sweaty liability who had three out-of-court settlements for sexual harassment on his CV, but, as we’re supposed to say nice things only about the dead I suppose I should say something pleasant myself and obey the convention ...He always had a perfectly trimmed moustache.  

  There are screams from behind me.  I hear them as if far off.  Must have been the noise of the shot.  Yes, I definitely have some ringing in my ears.  As I move my head to shake off the noise I catch a glimpse of my hands.  The gun rests neatly in them.  There’s a small amount of blood there as well.  How the hell did that get there?  The screaming is getting louder now.  I turn to face it and try to calm everyone down but they merely duck down and scream some more.  Oh, of course, the gun.  I drop it to the floor and head out of the office walking past Mr Grout senior and one of the Lester’s, in my current state I couldn’t tell you which one.  I need to get my head together and work out what happened?  

  As I walk down the central aisle to the elevators people try and speak to me.  I see their mouths move but it’s a far-off noise like the screams.  I press the button and wait for it to come, and wait and try to figure out what happened and wait and try and figure ...and wait ..and try ...and wait ...

12:35

  I open my eyes and immediately wish I hadn’t.  I’m outside my work building now.  London may have the Gherkin and of course it gets all the headlines, but here we have the pepper, a three sectioned whole that’s a bit of midget at 20 storeys.  Designed with a slant as a supposed deterrent to suicides, that’s the idea anyway, I think for many of my colleagues inside they see the building as more of a reason to actually commit suicide, but I digress.  Due to the curved nature of the building it means that the usual lowered boxes method of cleaning windows is undoable.  Therefore they have these bars, while I say a bar, it’s four-bar horizontal that you can walk on, three lots of them, this is what the window-cleaners click their harnesses to.  It’s also what I’m holding on, like my life depends.  

  The metal bars are hard to hold onto and as my legs flail in the air I can recognise without sight that I am about fifteen storeys up.  I hold on tight to the bars ledge and wonder how the hell I got here from my late boss’ office.  A few feet away a man is trying to help me by holding an outstretched hand.  I reach mine up so he can pull me back inside.  The wind up here even on a sunny day is noticeable even if you’re indoors.  Why was I out on the ledge in the first place?  

  He’s reaching over, his face a picture of fear as he holds onto the window frame with his left hand and stretches out with his right.  I wrap my right arm round all the bars and grip hard, stretching out as far as my left will let me.  I’m about a foot away.  I thrust myself up so my body rests on the bars and I get a further six inches nearer.  Stretching further I get two more inches and then another inch.  The bar makes a yawl and a squeak that is never good and the bar that holds one side of the bars sends me dropping about twenty feet.  I close my eyes and wonder if I’ll be able to get inside, in where it’s safe ...Back inside ...In where it’s ...back.

16:30

  I open my eyes.  I’m at the bank.  The counters and general ambience tell me that immediately.  The various people looking down on the ground in tears is not a good sign today though.  There is no-one behind the counter they’re all in front of it.  The other worrying thing are the five people with bombs attached to them.  They are also in tears.  As I look in my hand I can see why?  I’m holding a hand-trigger device.  If I let go the pressure will trigger the bombs going off.  What have I done now?  Today I’ve killed a man, nearly got another killed and now am holding five people hostage.  What kind of bastard have I become in the space of one day?  I was a creature of habit and yet look at me now.  What the hell has happened to me?  The only question I’m left with as people tremble at the sight of me is can I live with it a moment longer?  And the answer is no.  I look out of the glass doors and can see police cars waiting outside, presumably for me.  I head for the door and there are a number of screams.  Why are they trying to stop me from giving myself up?  I hear footfalls of someone running behind me.  I’m not trying to flee the scene merely stop the monster in his tracks that has taken over this suit I wear.  I break into a sprint to the door and head out into the glorious sunshine.  Whoever was behind me has stopped in their tracks and is screaming at me.  I open my arms and wait for the bullets to fly and save me from the evil that courses through my ever fibre at the moment ...

  “Hello, Paul,” said the Doctor.

  Paul opened his eyes.  He wasn’t dead.  He was in hospital.  There was a policeman at the door.  No doubt he’d been arrested by now.  He looked down at his wrists and was surprised to see that no handcuffs were attaching him to the bed.  Paul pushed himself up, even more confused than he had been all day.  

  “Where am I?” he asked.  Although the answer seemed obvious he wasn’t taking any chances.

  “You’re at Saint Grimshaw’s Royal hospital,” replied the Doctor.  “I expect you’re feeling quite confused about everything that’s happened today.”

  “Just a little,” said Paul.  as the buzzing in his head was hurting his eyes and grating against his throat.

  “I’m not surprised.  You are quite the unique individual.  It’s not everyday that one discovers a new disorder,” the Doctor smiled as he flicked over the details.  “At least that’s what we think it is.  Just need to run through a few questions first.”

  “A new disorder?” asked Paul.  The buzzing in his head was growing almost incessant now .

  “Yes, seemingly,” said the Doctor, consulting his chart, the smile still not leaving his face.  “Can I ask you a few questions?”

  “Sure,” Paul continued, clasping his forehead.

  “Is your job quite boring?” asked the Doctor.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say boring...” replied Paul.

  “Good, good, good,” said the Doctor.  “Would you say that you could do your job without really much effort?”

  “Well, I do put some effort to erm...” Paul replied.

  “Right, right, right,” the Doctor went on, while making further notes on his chart.  “And finally would you say your life is quite routine?”

  “Yes,” replied Paul.  “Definitely.”

  “Splendid, splendid, splendid,” said the Doctor.

  “Is there something you want to tell me?” asked Paul as the buzzing was now so bad he wanted to send a toilet brush into his ears.

  “I take it today has seemed like an episodic nightmare for you?” said the Doctor, finally putting his notes down.

  “Yes,” said Paul.  “I don’t know what’s been going on?  I seem to wake up in these nightmare moments that don’t seem make any sense.  At the bank when I came to and saw the trigger I just, I just don’t know how I got there?”

  “All seem chaotic and disjointed?” asked the Doctor.

  “Well, yeah.”

  “There is a reason for that,” said the Doctor.  “You seem to be suffering from inverted narcolepsy.”

  “Inverted narcolepsy?” asked Paul.

  “Yes,” replied the Doctor.  “It would appear that the routine of your life has created a situation where you’ve been wandering through your day-to-day activities in a largely unconscious state, said routine creating little reason for your conscious self to ever ...Wake-up as it were.  Today during these truly horrifying moments your conscious self has woken up in order to protect you.”

  “But what was I doing at these moments today?”

  “Nothing,” said the Doctor.

  “Nothing?” asked Paul.

  “Nothing.”

  “But my boss,” said Paul.

  “Your boss was about to be arrested for embezzlement,” the Doctor continued.  “He pulled a gun and was going to kill you.  Upon seeing his father and another partner outside he knew the game was up and so turned the gun on himself.  After he shot himself the kick-back from the blast threw the gun to you and you caught it.”

  “Oh,” said Paul as his brain throbbed from what, he still wasn’t sure.  “And the window ledge?”

  “Ah, well there was a man on the ledge trying to kill himself,” the Doctor explained.  “In your unconscious state you didn’t recognise the danger and so went out to bring him back in, slipped and that’s when you woke-up again ...as it were.  The man who was trying to help you was the one who you tried to save.  When the bars broke the people at a lower window pulled you in, when the danger was over you lapsed back into your unconscious state.”

  “And the bank?”

  “It was being robbed, you walked passed the police ring oblivious and when you went in knocked the device out of one of the robbers hands and then picked it up.  It had a five second trigger and the robbers realised that if you dropped it with all the explosives they had packed on the hostages then the explosion would’ve taken them with it.”

  “So why does my head hurt now then?” Paul asked.

  “We’ve given you some anti-psychotics that should allow your conscious mind to take over again,” the Doctor began.  “It may cause some discomfort and you’ll need to take about eight or nine a day, but that should cure the inverted narcolepsy and allow your consciousness to re-assert itself.”

  “And what if I don’t want that?” said Paul.

  “Excuse me,” said the Doctor.

  “What if I don’t want it cured?” Paul asked again.

  “Why would you not want it cured?” asked the Doctor.

  “Doc, it hurts.  I’m a creature of habit.  I don’t need to know what is happening.  Most of the time I don’t care to really think about what I do.  And if this pain in my head is the price I pay, then to be honest ...I’ll stick with my unconscious self doing everything with the occasional moment of clarity when needed,” Paul replied.

  “You serious?” asked the Doctor, not really believing what he was hearing.

  “Deadly,” Paul responded.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” the Doctor said.  “Well the medication you’ve been given should wear off in about two hours and then you’ll be back to normal, if that is what you wish?”

  “It is,” said Paul with a smile.

  “Very well,” said the Doctor before holding his hand out.  “Good luck then, Mister Harrison.”

  Paul shook the Doctor’s hand vigorously.

  “You too.”

  In a few short hours Paul knew that he’d be back to his usual unconscious self and clarity and awareness would slip away and routine and normality would be restored.

20:41

  I open my eyes.  The woman behind the counter is jumping upside down excitedly.  The woman next to me is smiling joyfully.  The lottery machine is ringing with the number eight hundred and fifty thousand flashing on it.

  After the day I’ve had I’m not gonna worry.  It’s probably not even my ticket.

Fin.


For those new to the blog please feel free to check out the previous posts, short stories, forgotten film assessments and various other things.  Also I would like to point out that my first book FREE AT LAST: A NOVEL by MIKE LAMBERT & ZOE LAMBERT is still available on Amazon Kindle for £2.09.

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