Keeping my sleep schedule and my circadian rythm in order is and has always been a precarious affair.

Most of the time, I feel reasonably tired, go to bed, close my eyes and nothing happens. I usually eventually stabilize the poor sleep into something ressembling a healthy lifestyle, but it is a fragile proposition.

Sometimes though, miraculously, I feel tired at an appropriate time, head to bed at an even more appropriate time, get very comfortable and start dozing off immediately, feeling incredible about how this all turned out.

I cherish these moments of respite.

As I’m navigating the shores of sleep, inner voice half nonsensical already, my last coherent thought is about how well rested I will be at work tomorrow.

And then, almost without fail, at that exact moment:

Someone with triangle ears (not naming any names or pointing fingers), will show up and jump on the bed, touch my face, meow in my ear and bap shit off the desk onto the floor.

Obviously this startles me awake and I open my eyes to find they are meeting another pair of small green eyes, sunken into a furry little apricot.

The little apricot, that is in the process of resolving to a cat face, then has the audacity to meow at me.

“What on earth do you need?” I ask, not really expecting a response. But I continue anyways, more for my own sake: “You’ve been fed, played with, your toys are all there, there’s ample room in here for you to hang.”

I reach out with a hand, peering over the black abyss of my six thousand years old eyeballs, who just want to be covered by eyelids forever and ask: “Do you just want attention?”

At this gesture the cat emits a melodic trill and takes off at a velocity that feels at least subsonic, but barely.

Like a wisp of smoke, he is gone, and my hand slowly returns to the bed, heavy with the the realisation that the fleeting moment of sleep has passed.

Just like him, the urge to nod off has also scampered off to fuck shit up in the living room.

We will repeat this game multiple times until eventually he will return to curl up next to my face and sleep the deep sleep of the ancient ones, his little apricot head nestled in my resting hand, the softest fur covering his stomach brushing against my face, while he smells of sunshine and warmth.

And I will be the most awake I have ever been.

What a shitty baby.