I didn’t intend to sleep. I simply longed for the ocean. Poor facsimile, I found a YouTube sound file–eleven hours of waves crashing on an anonymous beach. Earbuds in, I closed my eyes and fantasized of a castle on a shore in the mist, myself safe within, prone and passive, listening to the waves endlessly advance and recede. Soon, I slipped beneath the waves, into oblivion.

Monsters from the deeps

Whisper evil secrets in

My paralyzed ears