Insomnia, Irresistitble, and Bards and Sages.

Two years ago a friend of mine was staying at my place. She had to catch flight from Incheon Airport. I was living in Wanju at the time, about two hours by direct bus. She got up at Six A.M.. Because of insomnia, I sometimes don't sleep for weeks at a time. When it's at it's worst, I might get an hour an night. Falling asleep can take hours and sometimes not at all. If I do fall asleep, I'll wake up in as little as thirty minutes. It makes me grouch and irritable and not myself.  When I agreed for her to come stay with me a month prior,  I was getting about five hours a night. By the time she came, I was in a rough patch, not having slept more than three hours a night for two weeks. As would have it, we stayed up late chatting and around one, I fell into the deepest sleep I'd had in months.

As you can imagine, I was not particularly happy to be woken up at 6 A.M.I didn't get up to see her off, which resulted in her slamming things. We hadn't seen each other in a while, so she'd kind of come for my company as much for convenience. Well, I don't really know how a two hour bus ride to the airport was convenient. I wasn't being a good friend-- I was awake by then, but drifting in and out of sleep -- and knew it. But  I was too exhausted to drag myself out of bed.  I remember telling her there was some fruit in the fridge. I think it was apples. It was a sad peace offering.

"I brought my owned damned tangerines," she barked.

"I know," I barked back.  "Refrigerators don't generally make their own fruit."

I fell asleep and by the time I woke up, she had gone.  We made up later. In the meantime, I had a great idea for a story. In it, the refrigerator would produce fruit. The story was first called "Don't Eat the Fruit." I later retitled it, "Irresistible." 

I'm particularly proud of this story. At the time, I hadn't done anything remotely like it. You could say it's my first real story. Today, it found a home with Bards and Sages Quarterly.