French cat

Hey Leah.

I saw your French cat poster on somebody's shirt today.

-Ash

The sleep feeling.

You live with insomnia for long enough, you start to get a knack for it. You become familiar with what that feels like, when you kind of just know that you're either gonna, or not gonna be allowed to sleep.

You usually start to understand the situation just about right when you would normally start to become sleepy. That is, if you were a normal person and not cursed. Still, you used to be a normal person, and you used to be used to getting sleepy, so there's a feeling there that comes before 'sleep time', whether or not you recognized it. A ghost of a feeling, anyway.

The way you realize that you can't have any sleep tonight is when you first start to imagine that you might like to go to sleep. This realization may occur due to a few different reasons... maybe you've been awake since the technical beginning of the day, for a dozen or so hours. Maybe you're conditioned to go to bed at a certain time. Maybe you're just plumb wore out because you worked really hard that day. Maybe you're just plumb wore out because you ain't slept in a week.

It's probably a combination of two or more of those reasons. Whatever the reason why the idea of sleep floated across your list of imminent possibilities... the thing is, right after you've thunk the sleep possibility, you'll get another feeling, and THAT's the feeling what decides that you get to sleep. Everybody gets that feeling, but nobody ever notices it unless they've ever felt the opposite of it, or the lack of it.

It's a little bit like stepping back from yourself for a second and looking at your sleep temperature, but instead of actually looking, it's a feeling. Still, the comparison works. So you step back from yourself and you can't help but see your sleep temperature, if you've gone without sleep for a while. It's not something you'd ever notice unless there was something wrong with it, or unless you were used to something being wrong with it. Otherwise, it's just as natural as your body temperature. You never notice it.

If your sleep temperature is red, you don't get to sleep. If it's blue... blessed, blessed blue... then you're one of the few people who have ever been able to know to an absolute certainty that the future is good, and kind. If it's blue, you know you'll be able to sleep, and the feeling you get is like how you felt when you first realized that you were sure, 100% without a doubt, that there is a God. It's like, this euphoric joy, the elation of just being flat-out positive of something good, that you know is real. There's no proof for it, but you don't need proof because you can feel it. It's like... being unburdened.

That's the feeling you get when you know you're going to be able to sleep, after weeks of insomnia.

The reason why I went and wrote all of this is because my sleep temperature is red today. I saw it about thirty minutes ago. And since I ain't sleeping, the idea came to me to write about what it's like. So, that's what it's like.

Nightmare - sad violence

I was standing on a hill just outside of town, looking down at it. Something like a silvery green hot air balloon had fallen nearby. It seemed totally alien and unfamiliar, and I was afraid to go near it. I didn't know where any of my family was, and I was waiting on top of that hill for Fr. Justin and Dax and some other parishioners to walk with me into town.

My lost family showed up instead, but they seemed different. I didn't recognize them, although I knew who they were. I asked what had happened to them, and one of them said that there was a little bit of it left for me.

We turned around and walked back up the hill to where the balloon was resting. I was told to crawl inside of it and wait, but I was terrified. They all told me that it would make me stronger, and that I would be able to manage incredible feats of strength and endurance afterward. I asked if it would also protect me, and they said no.

I crawled inside the deflated balloon and waited. It became hot and windy inside, and then I felt a force pushing upward against both of my armpits. It was a soft pressure, and it tickled and hurt at the same time. Then it pushed inside of me and filled my whole body.

I crawled out of the balloon and my family said, there, that wasn't so bad was it? Then there were dozens of us, and we were all identical, silvery man-shaped figures. Then we all came together to form one single giant silver man, composed of the dozens of smaller individual silver men. I was balanced precariously at the top, and I was terrified as the long, silver strides of the man-thing carried me down the hill and into town.

When we arrived, I was taken off of the top and put back inside the balloon. This time while I was in there, I heard this ghost voice... a quiet, yet howling whisper of a voice. It was saying:

Asad, revenge, asad violence. It said that many times.

I cried out, What does it mean?

Asad, you are, it replied.

Asad means 'you are'?

You are a sad violence, you are a sad revenge, replied the ghost voice.

Then it repeated, making 'a sad' into one word again:

Asad revenge, asad violence
Asad revenge, asad violence
Asad revenge, asad violence
Asad revenge, asad violence
Asad revenge, asad violence
Asad revenge, asad violence,

in that howling ghost whisper.

Festooned.

Here's a word that I'm always, and I mean ALWAYS hearing in books that I'm reading, but never, ever from the mouths of actual people.

Festooned.

If means... let's see. Decorated. Covered all up and down. Bedecked. With gee-gaws, what-nots, and thing-a-ma-jigs.

For example:

The dungeon wall was festooned with the manacled corpses of several thousand Hyperborean sea monkeys.

The Christmas tree was festooned with solid gold bowling balls.

The garden trellis was festooned with the mummified ears of radish thieves.

The high school gymnasium bleachers were festooned with several dozen cunningly placed stashes of marijuana.

The screaming ninjas' face was festooned with bullet ants.

Festooned. Great word. It's a shame nobody uses it.

Trespassers will be castrated (balls cut off)

I have an extremely important question of the utmost urgency. It's imperative that I acquire an answer immediately, as the situation here is quickly deteriorating, and will soon spiral out of my control. Please, consider this question carefully...

Which is worth more, a pittance or a penny?

I beseech you. Any of you... all of you. I'm begging you. Help me, please.

I NEED TO KNOW.