On Sleep and Death

a Passage

We covet sleep—we hunt it as relentlessly as our ancestors hunted the fox. When we cannot get it, we fret and pine as though for an indifferent lover. We talk about it, think about it, and structure the evening like a spider’s web to catch it. Yet for all this, we fear death. When we think of it, we push it as best we can from our minds. We shut our eyes against it—and then pray for sleep. Is it any wonder, then, that sleep disdains us? No one would be intimate with a stranger who disrespects his cousin. For Death is the cousin of Sleep. Make peace with Death, and Sleep is all eagerness to embrace his cousin’s friend.