written By
I conjure up a human satellite
attuned to night-and-day’s full spectral sweep.
Found and made to jerk off to their delight
into test tubes, they’d launch research for sleep
-resistant breeds. Fresh paint will surely spell
alarm on coffee traders’ placards that’ll burgeon.
Never to go under—may he feel well
enough to spurn the cut aims of a surgeon!
Is he an alien among us, one sired
for hosts? I see drones processed single file,
a mothership’s all-night breeders, well wired
to mate with our women, then grossly defile
and overrun us. I read on and won’t cave
to buying the rag; at last, I reach the cashier.
He is an Earth native. One who will save
on beds for sleep if single, or with a dear
one has a nagging-proof excuse to catch
the late-late movie. Or he is some lucky
startup’s Overtime Darling none can match
in OT work. They flash him out, the plucky
asset in their initial offer to woo
investors—their unusual Wall Street proffer,
like mercury in oven rises for shoo-
in gains. It’s like a bedtime story my loafer
uncle told me about an old classmate’s
experiment to cheat sleep, some psych nut
with an unfinished book—of his debates—
Ninety-nine Ways to Beat Sleep, Conquer Rut,
and Harness Time. Sleep is a waste, he claimed.
Never again! Daily he changed as if
litmus paper till he seemed alien. Tamed
and broken down, he snored for days in relief.
Embellishment or fantastical, here
in print we find the prototype night-shift
nurse cum burger flipper: a new-tier
specimen for times of plenty or thrift.
He may not dream, though lying by his mate
learns what 24–7 work implies—
eye flutters of REM worlds he can’t recreate,
with time and space science can’t colonize.
