By Ed
I have just woken up, I turn my head towards my wall and try and go to go back to sleep it is 4am. I flip my pillow over to the other side and it is so cold that helps me go back to sleep. I put my head facing furthest away from my drawer I close my eyes and dream about going mountain biking in America.
3 hours 10 mins later I wake up again it is 7 10 now I try to go back to sleep by flipping my pillow but this time it doesn’t work I am happy I have slept in 3 hours because I haven’t had a good sleep in a while, sleeping in till 7 10 isn’t exactly good but I will take it as it is a school day.
I am now going to begin to get out of bed I begin taking of the covers slowly off my bed and then I put my right arm in the air and begin to stretch I hear a muscle in my arm crack, my right arm is now working, I begin to put my left arm in the air and a muscle in my left arm cracks twice. I finally get out of bed by putting my left leg out of the bed first and then my right leg follows I do about three steps to get to the clothes hanging up from behind the door. I slip on my black tracksuit bottoms first and then a red North face short sleeve top I also put on my grey Nike jumper. I am now changed I open the door quickly as it slams against the wall.
It is 7 40 now and I run up to my parents room and go on my phone for 30 seconds as I send snap-streaks to the people I have added on snapchat I slip my phone into my left tracksuit pocket with my left arm and begin to head down the 2 steps leading up to my parents room.
I take about 6-7 steps that leads me down to the 14 steps leading down to my hall I begin to go down to the hall planting my left foot on the first step and my right foot on the second and gradually step down the stairs. I am walking into the kitchen. I have reached the kitchen I look over at the Weetabix standing up on the table and put the Weetabix and milk I finish my Weetabix and walk into the sitting room. 5 mins later My Dad calls me and Sebastian in for toast I quickly have my toast and walk upstairs to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Now that I have done that I walk downstairs slip on my jacket and shoes and pick up my school bag.
Simone is waiting at my door and I begin to walk to school I meet with paddy and Senan and walk to school.
“This story opens with the writer waking up prematurely and struggling to go back to sleep. The first two paragraphs vividly yet subtly speak to children’s (typically invisible) struggles to muster enough hours of sleep each night. Throughout the story the writer uses details that are simultaneously precise and ambiguous in their significance, creating a distanced, mechanical quality. This rather sterile, Beckettian style sets up tantalizing, contrapuntal moments betokening an inner life that is passionate, creative, and emphatically private. In the finest of these, the writer recalls “a dream about going mountain biking in America.”
— Prof. Margot Backus, University of Houston, USA