The Sleepy Pebble

Last night as I waited for sleep to take me I imagined myself a pebble drifting to the bottom of a clear and gurgling mountain stream. I read somewhere that this sort of thing can improve the quality of your sleep. You are the pebble falling gracefully through clean water, finally coming to rest on the bottom. The water rushing above you is the bustle of your life. But you don’t have to worry about any of that because you are a pebble and you are in your place. Nice. I gave it a try.


I was a pebble plunging through the gentle currents. It wasn’t a bad feeling. I was aware of my heaviness, my mass, and my roundness. I felt myself slipping through the water. But then I was on the bottom. The stream was shallow and my fall too brief. I got bored.

So I turned myself into a rock and I changed the stream into the deepest part of the ocean. Now I had somewhere to go. Slipping through the vast darkness, feeling my weight drag me down. How far down? Thirty-five thousand feet. That’s the deepest part of the ocean. But I didn’t find sleep as I lay there imagining myself a rock sinking through 35,000 feet of water. Because I was bothered. Its never easy falling asleep when you are bothered. I was bothered by this: I have no idea how long it takes for a rock sink to the deepest part of the ocean.

How long? Ten minutes? Two hours? Twenty hours?

Anyone?