Today was a beautiful morning - a little warm, a little colourful and with just the right number of chirping birds to make the entire scene pleasantly melodic.

Then, at four minutes past seven, my bed tried to eat me.

I have had this bed since I moved into my apartment almost two years ago. Its a comfortable Sleepyhead, with a pretty headboard and ergonomic spring arrangement and other then a little creakiness in the bottom left leg, its never given me reason to complain.

Till now.

It'd been a late night last night. Sunday nights usually are. Its jazz night at the local tavern. They were playing the old favourites, the atmosphere was nostalgic, the audience receptive to good old stories and other people were buying. It just would have been rude to leave.

So anyways, at seven o'clock this morning, like seven o'clock every morning my alarm goes off. And like every morning, I thump down on the snooze button exactly as the neighbours' washing machine kicks into the final stages of its rinse cycle and makes the entire room shudder just a little.

It usually takes me just a little more that three minutes of tossing and turning and getting completely tangled in the sheets and duvet before I very groggily clamber out of bed and hobble toward the bathroom for my morning ablutions. This morning, it was just as I was dragging out behind me a royal trail of bed linen when it happened. I suddenly felt the sheets tighten around my feet. I struggled and the more I struggled the tighter they became until I found I could not move at all. I held my breath, rubbed my sleep encrusted eyes and nothing happened for a few moments. Then, almost imperceptibly, I felt I was being pulled back into the open, engulfing arms of Giant Sleepyhead. Quicker and more strongly, I could feel the tug of the sheets and now I realised the duvet wasn't merely wrapped around me, it was in fact ensnaring me, closing off my means of escape and trapping me in its shadowy limbs. The pillows, the very pillows that I had relied on, depended on, yes...even slept on...for years, were betraying me. They were lulling me while the Big Headboard of Death held me mesmerized and drew me into its hungry jaws.

The room swam before my eyes. The thought fleeted across my mind that I was being drugged by this maniacal beast that was endeavoring to devour me, but I couldn't hold on to the thought. I felt myself slackening and giving in and the darkness swallowed me. It was strangely dry - I'd seen enough movies to expect more moisture from the beasts of beyond, more dripping acidic saliva. As I shuffled around inside this lusus naturae, I could hear its raspy cottony breathing that made it bellow out and collapse and faintly I could hear the thumping of its evil heart racing that sounded so much like a distant washing machine spinning down. What, in the early morning sun, I had mistaken for chirping birds, were in fact digestive juices, preparing the guts of this monster for a small tasty snack.

I could see in my minds eye, a clock counting down my final minutes. I could even see myself reaching out toward this mental timer in some strange psychological attempt to prevent my inevitable demise - only too late - as a phenomenally loud ringing in my ears marked my end and I slipped into a deep sweet slumber.

And that is why I am late to work this morning.

J. Nagra