I've survived the night but only just. The attentive reader will have realized by now that I wrestle with sleep and the alternate universe of dreams like a waylaid baboon with a python. My bed is a locked cage in which I fight with the demons of insomnia, only rarely released to fall into a catatonic state that resembles sleep.

And so in the morning I roll off my bed of nails and stumble into the turgid day, pursued by the original cast of my extravagant dreams. Even as I sit down to breakfast I can feel the presence of those ethereal figures that haunt the dark hours; the ugly man, the huge cat, lost friends, my fragile mother and all the other tragic denizens of those bleak and shattered vignettes.

I chew my food and it stares back at me, insolent and devious. The fading echoes of those mad rooms haunt me as I stir my toast and butter my coffee. My poor beleaguered brain bumps and grinds into life.

Breakfast comes and goes but those arcane memories stay with me all day, receding like the sea. And like a dark green tide, they’ll return tonight to wash over me and drag me to the depths of exquisite madness. Perchance to dream.