Rather Funny

It wasn't that I'm a great writer.  It wasn't that I had become irrevocably wrapped in my characters' emotions and feelings.  It was merely the effect of a new semester which gets me out of bed at seven in the morning Monday through Friday.  But, in truth, I fell asleep on the keyboard while writing this.  

We had been quiet a while, enjoying the clean and clear weather, when through habit I glanced at my friend.  Upon seeing him I turned quickly away, then guided my head by inches back toward him.  He was falling asleep.  Throughout months of sitting beside him each night not once had I seen him sleep.  Whether he took twenty minute naps in the library or in his room while it was empty or however he got the minimal amount of rest survival requires I don’t know.  Now his head slackened to one side, his eyelids loosening and fingers unfurling over his legs.  By impulse I nearly stopped the car to lower his seat, cover him with my sweater.  But I bit my lip and drove.  Continued making our slow, winding way.  Living hills.  Diamond sky.  A beautiful world where my friend could sleep.  The car keeping us in constant low rumble, and I remembered how he would fold closer to his instrument whenever the notes came strong and rolling and made his chest quiver with their resonance.  For a great time he wandered, knowing nothing but that he was warm and comfortable and safe; then the eyes closed, and his breath came soft.