I am pretty sure that Sleep is actually a very hassled, anxious college student that is always late and only picked up with Sandman Inc to keep up with student debt.
Don't get me started on student debt. That is a story for another time.
No, Sleep is only part time. At least, the one that is assigned to me is. She checks her pocket watch (because all Sandman Representatives are given a pocket watch at the end of their two hour training seminar. Obviously.) after she gets her homework done every night. She always underestimates how long that homework will take and has a habit of cursing when she picks up the watch. She is late. Again. She has to make her rounds before her first class. It will put everyone on her list off on their preferred REM schedule, but she really can't help that. Also, most everyone on her list is also a college student, so they were likely all up doing homework all night anyway. No one even noticed she was absent. But now the sun is coming up like a creeper and she is going to get complaints if she doesn't get out now.
So Sleep drops everything and grabs her crap-tastic club that they assure her is a wand, that she uses as a taser to keep up her times. Without brushing her hair or even looking at her make up counter she flies out the door like a bat out of Hell. (Fruit bats anyway. Meat bats actually prefer a half cooked flesh environment.)
Sleep starts her rounds of overworked fellow college students. Just as they are nearing the end of their essays and homework she jabs them in the back of the head with her 'wand', and they fall hard. Some are able to messily put their work in a pile or in a bag and fumble off to a cushioned area, but most just head butt their desks and start drooling on their equations and keyboards. Sleep moves on quickly, content that they technically can be ticked off the list. She puts out budding engineers and creative types alike. Even Type A students that rather be taking stimulants get jabbed when they pause long enough. They all go down. Sleep even gets a few shots off at students that are in transit. Bus seats don't make for good napping, but she has a quota, people. The students that are technically their own transportation? She wrestles with her morals and compromises in having these students able to function basic tasks in a waking sleep state. You know how you drove that one place and don't remember anything, or 'zoned out' while talking to that one relative or friend? That is Sleep taking a half point in your box and calling it good because she has to move on.
Students in class are just out of luck as Sleep starts getting to the end of list. Sleep is an artist at making interesting teachers boring and monotone teachers a lullaby. She sneaks into early morning classes and jabs them in the back of the head, right in the brain stem. Eyes cross, then close, and Sleep checks your box. Too bad.
I am on the last of her list. I was recently a student. Sandman Inc has a backup in the refresh of their system. They still have me as a student, All-Nighter class with Early-Working achievement. These types of students are usually safe to leave to the bottom of the lists because we do our homework too late and go straight to work, coming home at normal Waking hours for our 'naps'. I did this for years.
But I would really like it if they updated that system, because I haven't worked early mornings in quite some time, and have petitioned for night-sleeping again. All my requests have been ignored.
So when Sleep gets to my place, I have been in bed for over an hour. I am under all the blankets, frowning. I usually have those night sounds on my phone going. I have tried everything. I am upset and this point and thinking of just getting up and calling it a miss with Sleep.
But she came. Way late, already thinking about the class she is also going to be late to. She tries to jab me. She fumbles. I fall into a very light agitated sleep. She jabs me again. I am now in the deepest sleep I will be all night. When she checks her wand's Sand levels she realizes she is low. Again. I will only stay asleep for a few hours, between each cycle of sleep waking up completely and only getting down to a light sleep between those. It is the best she can do.
Sleep promises she will do better tomorrow night. She will keep an extra pack of Sand so she doesn't run low and the bottom people on her list, like me, won't get only dregs.
But she is late for her own classes. She has to turn in that project. She has to get going.
So she leaves me and puts her wand away. She forgets about me.
But the Early Bird Corp. representative doesn't forget about me. He is there earlier than needed, or wanted. Because he is a sadistic freak that likes to come around before his rounds even start. Rooster Level and gunning for that free car, he is more than happy to wake me up before dawn. He calls me a valued customer and visits me multiple times a day for the Second Wind promotion and Late Night Jolt extra.
I really can't decide which one I hate more.
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