As the pill takes charge the vice of sleep peels away and I become again capable of action.

When winter came in this year it was a little melodramatic. There was a big fantastic snow with big fantastic snow flakes. But, winter is old news now. The snow is like sand and the cold is deep, hardening the earth, stopping the roots from creeping forward through soil by building tiny crystal road blocks -- ice.

The pill has swept fully over me. The last sticky chunks of the sleep beast fall off my face. I’m like a newly minted coin, a freshly dipped candle . . an egg. I am sound and whole. And my heart beats in even strokes. God bless modern medicine.

Outside the wind is too feeble to pull the last dry leaves from the branches, but in my mind they're flying--