Sleep showed up unexpectedly and blew the door off my flat. I leapt for cover and came up pumping shot at her like a mechanical version of what was in my pants. We exchanged fire as the leaden rainfall chased and dogged us like two lovers who couldn’t decide between torrid sex and feral murder after a catastrophic argument.

Parts of my head flew off and painted the walls with ecstatic colors and inarticulable floral patterns. Sleep lost her gun hand, which seemed to crawl toward me of its own accord — but simply switched to the other — and was a better shot with that one. It figured. She kept pumping me full of promises of future pleasures to be had, and I continued to pepper her with combinations of sexist insults interspersed with feverishly sung vows of eternal devotion.

The action was so fervent that Death and Time showed up and started wagering on whether we would blow each other to pieces or marry on the spot. Her love was like a bad war that rips the aggressor to shreds and bangs the recipient into some distant reflection of their primitive history.

That we loved each other was implicit; that all hell broke loose was a fact, and if we ever got near enough to touch I was pretty sure we’d tear all of human history apart from the beautiful start all the way to the desperate finish.