Sleep Walking

 

This stiff-upper-lip voice

floating at me

 

through my radio

 

this upper-class British voice

 

that I alternately envy and deride

 

describing new research

 

into the incidence of sleep-walking

 

and one of the symptoms

 

one of the ways you can tell

 

is by the victim's (?) GLAZED EYES

 

Is that how?

 

Could be my life is one

 

whole sleep-walking experience.

 

And he goes on to say

 

it's a fallacy, they don't die of shock

 

if precipitately

 

brought out of their sleep-walking

 

and goes on to give an example

 

of some woman who had an 'unfortunate'

 

tendency to sleep-walk

 

in the wee hours of the morning

 

- naked - and that's

 

how her husband invariably discovered her

 

walking the streets, naked.

 

"It distressed her husband enormously"

 

the voice said. Well, yes it would.

 

But women are like that

 

always dreaming of

 

walking the streets

 

though few of us do it

 

naked

 

and fewer yet

 

die of mortification when

 

precipitately brought to reality.