Russell Edson

Sleep

There was a man who didn't know how to sleep; nod-ding off every night into a drab, unprofessional sleep. Sleep that he'd grown so tired of sleeping.      He tried reading The Manual of Sleep, but it just put him to sleep. That same old sleep that he had grown so tired of sleeping . . .      He needed a sleeping master, who with a whip and a chair would discipline the night, and make him jump through hoops of gasolined fire. Someone who could make a tiger sit on a tiny pedestal and yawn . . .