Something Happens In My Sleep

Below you will find the results of my having challenged myself for a number of days to write a short story with a beginning and middle and an end inside of 30 minutes. Here is what I came up with. I hope you like it.

Something happens when I sleep. The people in the building move. They drag their furniture around and hide booklets under the carpets. They leave maps in one another’s apartments. You need to read them in the right order to find what they want you to find. They leave tricks in the maps. You don’t know they’re tricks. Something happens when I sleep. They change the fluids in my car. Precious automotive fluids. The windshield wiper fluid is different. They leave messages in the cracks in the windshield. If you lock the doors, the remnants are caught in the car forever… or at least until you open the doors again. The priests at the parish up the street won’t take my calls, anymore. They say I need a doctor, not Jesus. Something happens when I sleep. Somebody keeps changing the channel to ESPN. I will leave papers on the floor. White papers. If something happens in my sleep, I will see the footprints when I awake. I hope something happens in my sleep.