Just as my eyelids are set to slump, the bully in my pillow says, You really think it’s time for sleeping, you aspiring loser? Think switching off is ever going to switch anything on in that tin-can brain of yours? Why haven’t you replied to Tim Hammond? Tim Hammond is probably telling his wife over kedgeree how all you do in meetings is nod, except today you nodded in the wrong place, didn’t you, so you had to develop your stance on brand positioning, mumbling more errs than substance, and tomorrow he’s going to come out with his predictable, We need to talk, just like Sheryl did. Remember Sheryl? Seriously, I say to the bully in my pillow, yes, I remember Sheryl. I turn over on my belly and remember Sheryl. The bully in my pillow is mute for a minute and I wonder if he’s done. I say I remember the kiss at Ladram Bay when the tide tripped over our trainers and we didn’t move. We didn’t even feel our toes until we’d stopped kissing, and the bully in my pillow mimics the waves under the silent pull of the moon. I remember when Sheryl said doubt was a turn-on, I continue, and the bully in my pillow reemerges with an intercourse moan and says, Oh, you were so sexy-wexy with your doubt, weren’t you, and I tell him to quit the audio already. I remember the contours of her lips, I say, I could draw them now, and I jiggle my cock out of my boxers, pray the bully in my pillow is exiting my ears, but he says, Jesus, you’re thinking about Sheryl and that time in the Applied Science section at the library, aren’t you? Or has your dirty little mind whipped up that equine woman Bonesy tried to set you up with last Saturday, the one who requires a man with a plan, which is an oxymoron for you, is it not? I pat around for my fleshlight and little hexagons start to form under my eyelids. The bully in my pillow turns into murmurs until he shouts,
Taxes!
Overdraft!
1.5-degree threshold!
Withering chrysanthemums on your mother’s grave!
Prostate!
Tim Hammond!
I ball my hands into fists and howl until I’m hoarse. My eyes are pools of stagnant water. I contemplate the earth turning on its axis, the universal creak, the smallness of everything. I tug the pillow out from behind my head and wrap my arms around it, feel the goose feather reprieve.
Ssh, you little shit, I say, ssh.