Counting Sheep

This story needs some editing, but please put up with the grammatical errors for now. Thank you!
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You know how doctors in comics and cartoons diagnose their insomniac patients with counting sheep in their heads to fall asleep? You have to focus on nothing but the sheep, skipping over a wooden fence. The doctors say, clear your mind. Clear away all cobwebs of thought.

Concentrate. The sheep. They’re baby sheep. They have short, cute legs. Their wools are fluffy and so, so white, like they’re fresh off the cleaners. Because of their whiteness, they kind of glow with a bright light. The kind that would make your eyes hurt if you stare unblinkingly for a long time. They remind you of… pillows. Brand new, soft pillows. And they remind of you of the sleep you’ve been missing for the past week.

The fence. It’s low, low enough for the baby sheep to jump over. There’s nothing special about the fence. It’s just made up of everyday ordinary wood. And the wood reminds you of your bedroom walls where you bang your head in hope of falling unconscious and drift into slumber.

The doctor’s voice echoes in your head. Clear your mind. Clear away all the cobwebs of thought.

You’re thinking too much of falling asleep that you can’t fall asleep. Focus. Focus really, really hard on those sheep.

The scenery. There’s nothing but grass and sky. A very vast landscape of grass. A clear, blue, limitless sky. Why wasn’t there a farmhouse in sight? So you conjure a farmhouse with your head. And you also conjure a tree, then a farmer eating a crunchy apple and reading a book beneath the tree’s shade. The farmer and his book and apple has nothing to remind you about your insomnia, but then you remember your insomnia, and again you think about looking like a zombie in the morning with deep, dark circles under your eyes.

Clear your mind. Clear away all the cobwebs of thought.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…

Half an hour’s gone, and it’s kind of working. You’re falling asleep. You’re on the 78th baby sheep. You’re losing consciousness, and the next thing you know, you’re asleep.

You are finally soundly asleep with no cobwebs of thought in your head and a soft pillow that just might be a baby sheep.

Then, you’re dreaming. In your dream, you’re dreaming. There’s a big cloud over your head, and small puffy circles connecting the cloud to you. You’re dreaming of sheep skipping over a fence. There’s a small box on the top left, containing the number ‘78’. As another baby sheep jumps over the wooden fence, the number changes to ‘79’. Just how many sheep does this farmer have? Well, it could be a million, for all you care. This is a dream, remember?

So the sheep keep on jumping, and the number keeps on changing. And then on the 101st sheep, a big, scary wolf comes out from nowhere. It was a huge, gray wolf with razor sharp teeth. The wolf is standing on two legs. The wolf’s mouth curls into a nasty smile, and he licks his lips in delight. The 101st sheep is shivering with fear behind the low wooden fence. Meee, it says weakly. Poor baby sheep will soon be the big bad wolf’s dinner.

Meee. Where’s the farmer?, says the baby sheep.

I’ve eaten him, says the wolf. He tastes like chicken, but you know what’s better than chicken? Baby sheep.

The baby sheep inches a little bit away from the wolf before her tiny legs give and she collapses on the grass, trembling all over.

With one swift motion, the wolf goes over the fence and grabs the baby sheep with one hand. He narrows his eyes and studies her. Hmm, I will have to shave all that wool of yours, he says, and grabs a pair of shears from a pocket of fur. Yes, a pocket of fur attached to his waist. And then, with the shears, he skillfully removes all of the baby sheep’s fluffy white wool. She meees and goes wild and tries to free herself in vain from the wolf’s tight grasp, because it was only a few moments before the wolf would be crunching at her fragile body and lay in fragments inside his stomach. But the scary wolf is too strong for her.

When all baby sheep’s wool was gone, she was naked and ugly. Really, the only thing that made her look so adorable was the wool.

The wolf stares hard at baby sheep, who was screaming like hell now. Then, without warning, the nasty carnivorous wolf stuffs her in his mouth and bites at the soft flesh of poor baby sheep and swallows contentedly. Tsk, tsk. Baby sheep is now but a lump of chewed meat inside the wolf’s stomach, waiting to be digested. The number inside the box on the top left of the cloud changes to 100.

And then you wake up with a start. You’re sweating a lot, and you’re finding it difficult to breathe. You find this weird dream of sheep and a big bad wolf awfully disturbing. You remember Little Red Riding Hood. And then you try counting sheep again, but suddenly, your mind would conjure a wolf and he would start munching on the sheep. You glance at the clock in your bedroom, and it’s two in the morning. You notice how similar your clock is with the numbered box in your dream. And then the entire dream replays in your head. You didn’t even tell your mind to do that. Can’t sleep. Can’t sleep can’t sleep can’t sleep!

You get up from bed with even deeper and darker circles under your eyes and you get dressed to buy a book about dreams. You went through it with all the concentration a sleepless zombie can manage to come up with, but there was nothing about dreaming about yourself dreaming about sheep and a wolf eating one of the sheep.

It’s 11:00. You slip in bed, not even bothering to wash or change. You look up at the ceiling painted white, and wonder what it’s like to be a bunch of wood attached to the top of a room. It would probably be a nice, quiet life. You don’t even have to think about insomnia and wolf eating sheep if you’re a ceiling, because you don’t have a mind to think with.

So you spend the next two hours thinking about being a ceiling. You feel so terribly sleepy, but your brain refuses to rest. The room is quiet, and you think you can hear the gears of your mind restlessly turning and turning and turning. Finally, at 5:00 in the morning, you fall asleep.

And then you dream. Yes, it’s the same thing. It’s the same old, peculiar dream.

Meee. Where’s the farmer?, says the baby sheep.

I’ve eaten him, says the wolf. He tastes like chicken, but you know what’s better than chicken? Baby sheep.

And then you wake up with a start. Again. You’re sweating a lot, and you’re finding it difficult to breathe. Again.

And guess what happens next? A wolf suddenly springs from your head. Think of Athena coming out of Zeus’s head. It was just like that. Except it was your head, and instead of a naked full-grown goddess, it was a wolf. He lands on two feet on your bedroom floor. The exact same one in your dream with the razor sharp teeth and the pocket of fur attached to his waist.

You know what’s better than a farmer that tastes like chicken? A pretty little girl that tastes like chicken, the wolf says, in a raspy, scary voice. He walks towards you, and the ground shakes.

Your dream. It’s come alive. You wipe your eyes. The wolf is still there. Oh no, what should you do? He’s coming to eat you. You will soon be nothing but a lump of chewed meat inside the wolf’s stomach, waiting to be digested. You don’t want to be a lump of chewed meat. You want to live, and you have dreams: you want to have a family, to see all the beautiful green meadows of the world. But now your dreams will never come true.

The wolf is standing right next to you now. You pull your blankets over you, and you shut your eyes hard. You’re shaking like crazy because you’re so scared, and you notice that your bed has become warm. You smell your bed, and it’s a nasty, putrid smell. Then you part your thighs and find your pajamas wet. You peed.

The wolf yanks your blanket away, and he smiles a wicked smile.

Meee, you’re hearing yourself say. Meee? Meee!

And then you wake up. You poor baby sheep, daydreaming about being a human, thinking you would be safe from the big bad wolf.

You, now a baby sheep, like you are in real life, and not a pretty little girl that tastes like chicken, eat some grass and sigh. Never will you escape from your fears of the wolf that has eaten your mother, your father, and several of your siblings.

You look up, and you see a wolf. The exact same one from the dream of you as a girl in your daydreaming. You thought your eyes were playing tricks on you. You look around. All of your other baby sheep friends have disappeared. You had the weirdest feeling: you felt reality and imagination tugging at you, trying to pull you in each of their separate realms. You look at the scary big bad wolf again, and you make a conclusion that this is just another dream. What is the matter with you? You’re going nuts, baby sheep. You snicker at the wolf, and say, you can’t fool me. You’re just another—

And then the wolf picks you up and stuffs you in his mouth and bites at the soft flesh of you, you poor baby sheep, who has lost all sense of reality, and are now dead and in sheep heaven with your mother, your father, and several of your siblings. He didn’t even bother to shear you.

See what you get from daydreaming?