I'd been sleeping in a T-shirt, and even though it was summer my whole body was trembling with cold. The clouds lying over the open town gleamed with silver. I gazed down at the streams of cars, the fog that addled my head still refusing to disperse, and got into my clothes. Even after I had washed my face, even after I had brushed my teeth, I felt completely unawake, and felt my drowsiness spreading, seeping slowly down into the very core of my being.

I went down to the café and had lunch, but my limbs were just floating through space, my mouth and stomach and heart were all messed up, and it was so extreme it made me sad. Several times, as I sat bathed in the enchantingly pale sunlight that streamed through the window, I felt my eyes starting to close. I tried counting my way back through the hours I'd slept. But no matter how many times I counted, the total always came out to be more than ten. Why on earth am I still so sleepy, why don't I wake up? However sleepy oversleeping leaves me, I'm usually fine after half an hour. . . . But even these thoughts, absorbed in them as I was, seemed not to belong to me.

My head was reeling as I climbed into the taxi that took me back to my apartment. After putting a load of clothes in the wash, I sat down on the sofa and promptly started dozing off again.

It was hopeless.

At some point I noticed that my head was drooping down ever so slowly toward the back of the sofa. I sat up with a start and began leafing through a magazine, but soon noticed that I'd been reading the same place over and over again. God, this is just like being in class in the afternoon, falling asleep staring at a textbook, I thought, and then closed my eyes again. The cloudy sky swept into the room . . . it was like I was having some kind of attack. Even the rumble of the washing machine couldn't keep me awake. I no longer cared about anything. I slipped out of my blouse and skirt and let them drop to the floor, then climbed into my bed. The cover felt cool and comfortable, the pillow settled gently into a lusciously sleepy shape.

I'd just begun listening to my breath as it deepened and slowed when I realized that the phone was ringing. Of course it had to be my boyfriend, that was obvious. It rang on and on, like an expression of his ever patient love, but however earnestly I tried, I just couldn't open my eyes. It's like some sort of curse, I thought. My mind is perfectly clear, but I can't get up.

A certain doubt fluttered up briefly in my mind.

Maybe his wife put this curse . . . ?