SleepFree Inc.

The Sleepers begins with a poem about John and the meaning of his name. Chapter 51, the last chapter, begins with a poem about Sleeping Beauty, the metaphor for America Asleep. I've copied the poem here for you to read. Thank you for listening to the complete version of The Sleepers. Please leave a review on Amazon and share the links with your friends.

Sleeping Beauty adorned the dais,
Doll-like and dainty.
A monument to men and madness.

Preciously placed by imperfect people,
Unnaturally perfected.
As stone rests on stone,
No bosom or breath heaves.
She, symbolic sufferer of our sin.

Cleverly concealed and clearly seen,
The public panacea, pristine and impregnable,
Eternal evader of capricious men,
She wants and waits for no one.

I found her fickle and firm.
I sought the sumptuous satisfaction,
Of kissing the sweet, sonorous Sleeping Beauty.
To find freedom in flesh and wake a nation.

But cold and clenched lips returned my gift.
Detached and distracted, she decidedly declined.
Sleeping Beauty awoke only to reject resurrection.
Wresting from my arms, she rests again,
Content with the quiet complacency sleep bequeaths.

The puppet and strings have played a key symbol throughout this story.  In these last chapters, it is time to cut strings and reveal the puppet masters.  Enjoy the penultimate chapter.
And for those curious about the reference to Ozymandias, it is a poem by Percy Shelley.  Very short read and well worth it.  The kingdoms setup by man shall fall.  Will SleepFree face the same fate?

Just this and two more episodes remain.  We are on the home stretch and the puzzle pieces come together, but changing the world and ending the great dream does not come easily.  Chapter 49 is written from Ray's perspective in a dream.  I love the concept of communicating with others through dreams.  It seems to be the substance of how we hope we communicate in the physical realm -- by sharing and living our dreams.  Of course, in the world of THE SLEEPERS, this possibility goes perhaps too far and we forget that dreams are nothing without life.

When the average number of child births in a country continues to fall, distant cousins can become meaningful relationships.  This was part of the premise of how I first wrote this chapter.   Then I considered whether borrowed sleep would encourage you to have more children, whether as a client or a sleeper.  I pessimistically wrote that with more hours, you may want to really focus on the one child as a client.  And by the time this future comes, perhaps more stringent population controls would be in place.  For sleepers, I figure it would be even more discouraging having more children, only because there might be so little time between multiple jobs (though you could put them on the market at 8 to bring in extra income).  So I imagined a world where the birth rate continued to crash.  That philosophical chapter was mostly deleted, but the key premise drives the root of what remains.  Enjoy.

I wrote the chapter about nightmare transfer very early when first developing this story, back when I spent significant time in the childhood section.  Later I moved this chapter to the end so that Jane could understand John's motivations but also Ray's true empathy for his friend.  The latter half of this chapter, the return of a classic character, was one of the last few pages I wrote after two friends (and beta readers) said I needed to close out this part of the story better.  I'm so glad I listened.