Report from the Underground: Avant Garde Sleeping

That is, so it begins for you, the hapless chap who sleeps in a downy bed, out by eleven after a warm glass of milk and a hot bath, just like mother's womb. I, on the other hand have rejected your somnic conformity. Thirteen miles above the earth's atmosphere, I have constructed a small space station that hangs aloft due to gravity distortions caused by interactions between the earth, the moon, and a second natural satellite that has found it's way into the earth's atmosphere, Cruithne. Regardless of the revolutions, the craft stays stationary hanging above Nashua, New Hampshire. Because of the odd gravity static, I was able to build a gigantic elevator that leads to the station, and every night at ten, I enter the elevator and it slowly transcends its terrestrial bonds. As the atmosphere thins, I drift off into unconsciousness, that sweet blanket of asphyxiation gently rocking me to sleep in her arms. And in the morning, the elevator descends returning me to the luster of the waking world.

I first began my dalliance with the avant-sleeping movement serendipitously. In my spare time at the apiary, between honey-cullings, I have the habit of visiting the internet café next door to search online for foreign cigarettes. Yes, I am sikarophile, delighting in freshly-rolled tobacco from foreign lands, and I generally use newsgroups to stay abreast of the latest trends, to see who's smoking what these days, to find out where I can get the latest Carrion Browns or that new French duster that has everyone's fits in a tizzy.

Anyway, as I was searching, I found the name of the latest cigarette to rumored to excite the Chinese markets. A European ex-patriot from the Sudetenland by the name of Gottlob F. Laframboise had recently moved to the Quangsangphroid Province of lower China in order to perfect his latest masterpiece, a cigarette that can be smoked underwater! It took a lot of searching to find out the story, but the results opened up a whole new world to me.

Laframboise's history began with the Nazi invasion of Alsace-Loraine. His father, a traveling salesman employed by the Third Reich to accompany the 102nd Battalion and forewarn French towns of their immanent destruction, met his mother, a Vichy collaborationist at a small fair in the south of France. Both on vacation from the war, they met, fell in love, and soon Gottlob was born. A week after his birth, both his father and mother were killed in a movie theater when the projectionist fell asleep at his post and accidentally knocked over the projector which fell, crushing the skulls of dear mutti and vati.

Raised by his Aunt Laira Laframboise, Gottlob soon fled France after learning of his parent's shameful history. Ending up in Syria, he settled down and quickly found work as a tobacconist, where he began experimenting with different cigarette compositions. His employers realized his natural affinity for creating interesting smokes and immediately suspended all his other duties in favor of research. Hoping to become wealthy beyond means, they began suggesting different things for Gottlob to try, the top of their list being a submarinite cigarette. Nights upon nights were spent on experimenting, but all was met with failure until a colleague of his, a fellow from Indochina, remarked that he had heard of a strange element located only in southern China which is used in certain rituals. Papers with the names of a recently deceased person's relatives are coated with this element, put into a metal bowl and then are lit on fire and submerged in a reflecting pool. The last name to float to the top unblemished inherits the deceased's estate. Laframboise set out on an expedition the following week.

As it goes, he began searching for the element, which the locals referred to as Xian-zi's Heat, but rather than being able to discover the town that supposedly was the only one to have deposits of this element near by, he instead stumbled upon a rich vein of a rare chemical composition, Lachrymose Oxide or Weeping Air. Outside of Shenzhen, a small fishing community, he was taking a rest, when a sweet smell enticed him into a glen. Gottlob soon discovered the source of the smell, a swift-moving colloidal substance that flowed through a small break in the ground. That evening, while explaining his discovery at the local bar, he was taken aside by a wizened old man, and the goo's nature was explained. "Since ancient times, the citizens of this town have used this strange substance in our religious ceremonies. When heated to a certain temperature, it turns into a black smoke which we then capture in a syringe and inject into our bodies. The results are instant sleep and massive, involuntary crying, so much so that those who participate in the ritual must spend the next day recovering from dehydration."

Thinking it was an interesting, albeit useless discovery, Laframboise captured some in a vial and thought no more of it. Resuming his quest, he returned to the roads. That night, however, camping in the Chir-Han Sanctuary, Gottlob had trouble sleeping and in a fit of insomniac frustration, pulled out his insulin needle and cooked himself a sleeping potion. The next thing he knew, he was waking up on the ground, moistureless and grasping for his canteen. However, as he lay there, his weak hands slowly drawing his drink to his mouth, an artistic epiphany struck him. "What if I were to create a sleeping cigarette with this?"

The results were sent back to his employers who, not seeing the artistic vision, angrily threw the crate of fresh smokes in the corner and summarily fired Laframboise. However, when the cigarettes were accidentally shipped to France, the avant-garde movement hailed them as genius, and avant-sleeping was born. These days, avant sleeping takes many forms, from my special sleep craft to old-school injecters of Weeping Air (found to be a bit pedestrian by those on the edge, like myself) to my friend James Cromby Silventen, who has created a machine capable of analyzing your brain's alpha waves and can then stimulate it with the exact negative frequency, canceling out your natural waves and immediately rendering you unconscious. Avant-sleeping has only just begun as an art form, and the true beauty of it is, that it finally brings art down to the level of the everyman. Remember our motto, "Ars Gratia Sopor!"