From the Satchel of the Sandman

My dearest …,

I work the shift nobody else wants, between the last light going off and the first bird starting up, and I have a satchel with me the whole way. Tonight I stopped at your window on purpose. The name on my list was .

Here is what is actually in the satchel, since you have probably wondered. Not sand. Dreams, ground very fine. I mix them fresh each evening and I choose each one for the person it is going to, which is why yours will be different from your friends' and why it will feel, when you are in it, as though it was made for you. It was.

I know about the dark, . I know it seems bigger at night and that the shapes in your room behave differently once the light is off. So let me tell you the true thing about the dark, from somebody who works in it professionally: it is the same room. Everything in it is the thing you saw at teatime. I walk through dark rooms all night long and I have never once found anything in one that was not already there in the afternoon.

And I stay until you are properly under. I do not leave the moment your eyes shut. I wait, , because that is the part of the job that matters.

Sleep well and travel far,
and I will see you at the edge of it —

The Sandman

Keeper of the Late Watch

P.S. — The little bit of grit in the corner of your eye in the morning is mine. I am not always tidy. Think of it as a receipt.