Listing to Port

1. Atop a giant litter full of eiderdown, carried by seven hundred Roman legionaries along a remote Mediterranean beach, on a day when a gentle breeze is blowing.

2. On a pile of cats that has been frozen in time for the duration of your nap.

3. In a small sound-proof capsule, reinforced and bolted to the ground in such a way that the movements of an energetic induce it to a gentle rocking, approximately 20m away from a bank of speakers at a Black Sabbath gig.

4. In the belly of a whale, that has been swallowed by a bigger whale, that has been swallowed by the hugest whale to ever live, in the far distant future when the earth is largely inhabited by whales of different sizes and they swallow each other for fun all the time and even sing to each other while they’re in there.

5. On a luxurious cloud of bellybutton lint, having spent a life collecting it, strand by strand, under the guise of scientific investigation.

6. On top of a lie so big that it has become fluffy and frayed at the top from brushing up against the hard world of facts so often.

7. In a book, under the chapter heading ‘Comfort and Relaxation’ with a nice but slightly staid serif font rubbing your feet.

7010 Sleep
 -7010.1 Restful, restorative and refreshing
    –7010.11 Those that one sinks blissfully into, cradled in soft eiderdown, for eight or more hours, waking into golden morning sunlight to the smell of coffee and the knowledge that an exciting project awaits
       —7010.111 Those that would be like that but for the need to get up and pee
       —7010.112 Those that would be like that if it were not for the cat
          —-7010.1121 Those where the cat is thinking a cattish version of exactly the same thing, with ‘human’ substituted
    –7010.12 Sleep after exhausting physical work
       —7010.121 That sleep which leaps gloriously upon you following a day walking in Scottish hills
    –7010.13 Lazy afternoon naps
 -7010.2 Uneasy or troubled
    –7010.21 Sleep containing more than the standard quota of bad dreams
    –7010.22 The outcome of a battle between coffee and sleep, temporarily won by sleep
    –7010.23 Sleep on a hundred mattresses with a pea underneath
    –7010.24 Sleep on a hundred mattresses with a pee underneath
    –7010.25 That sleep that your consciousness is trying to slip into like a clogged-up drain, thick with trapped and flailing thoughts
    –7010.26 Feverish sleep
 -7010.3 Interrupted
    –7010.31 Sleep of unusually short duration
       —7010.311 That sleep that gently slips over you in a warm lecture theatre or meeting room, shortly after eating lunch
    –7010.32 Sleep in the vicinity of a baby
       —7010.321 Sleep repeatedly interrupted by a baby who has just turned one and is decidedly too old for this shit
       —7010.322 On the night before work which requires use of the brain
    –7010.33 Sleep whose sudden curtailment has revealed splendid dreams not yet forgotten
    –7010.34 Sleep before catching an early flight
 -7010.4 Mystical, enchanted or otherwise unusual
    –7010.41 Sleeps of a hundred years
       —7010.411 Those occasioned by a malign fairy
       —7010.412 Those having to do with time dilation
       —7010.413 Those resulting from being mystically knackered
       —7010.414 Sleeps for which all of the above factors are relevant
    –7010.42 Sleeps of a year or so
       —7010.42 Those occasioned by a moderately lazy fairy who just wants a lie in
    –7010.43 Those accessing the same dream, a little further each time