Hard to Sleep: Ten Sentence Story #157

Although Jerald and his wife traditionally went to bed at the same time, on one particular evening Jerald had been staring at the alarm clock for nearly an hour now, and though time kept on going by he was having an impossible time falling asleep.

He was really hoping that if he just lay there long enough, that sleep would eventually overcome him and he could get some rest for his weary body.

This was at least the third or fourth night in a row that he had such a horrible encounter with the alarm clock — it always seemed to go this way, and it was starting to worry his wife.

He would stare at the clock, and time would go on and on, and as time passed he repeatedly calculated how much sleep he would get if he would only fall asleep within a few minutes.

At the onset of the evening he was always more optimistic as he was going to get close to a full eight hours of sleep — but as the number slowly went down he felt more and more gloomy about his prospects.

Jerald was glad that eventually something would distract him and he would think about that something long enough to fall completely asleep.

After nearly a week of this kind of struggle Jerald’s wife bought a program for his alarm clock that would put an end to the staring.

Every time it detected the stare of a pair of eyes, it would play a lulling melody, which would have the effect of making Jerald’s eyes heavier until they closed.

The program was created and intended for parents of babies and toddlers but it had been working out quite well for people in Jerald’s situation.

Jerald’s wife made a new program based on the one she had bought for Jerald, but targeted toward adults and not babies — it sold so well that Jerald found himself no longer staring at the clock at night!