Sleepwalker/Night Runner

This story and these images are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

This story was written by Ed, and with his permission, I have illustrated it and reproduced it here.

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They sat at a plastic table in a laundromat watching Ed's sheets and shorts go round and round in a dryer. It was an entirely suitable place for these conversations as Ed no longer kept an office and no one pays any attention to what anyone says in the laundromat.

"Interesting case. He's a somnambulist."

"Hopefully not like 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari'!"

Dr Niella Collins grinned, "Not too far off, but I really don't think so."

This caused Ed to raise an eyebrow.

"He says he's got these intrusive thoughts about murder and finds himself waking up in the middle of the night, fully dressed when he knows he went to bed in his underwear."

"Go on..."

"Nothing in his background to indicate any violent tendencies. It's mixed up with sex, probably-"

"You adorable little Freudian!"

She waved him off, "Sex and one too many Hitchcock films, I think. I'm putting him on trazadone."

"And Frank Capra. Maybe George Cukor."

She laughed.

"So we covered your professional life, how about you? Still running when you should be sleeping?"

Niella wouldn't meet his eye. "Yeah..."

Young and slender, she had the body of an Olympic cross country runner. She'd run for miles in the park at night, then sleep for 3 or 4 hours. They both knew that there was some compulsive aspect to it, but she'd never been able to put her finger on it.

[to be continued]