Leira walked down the road, hunched over slightly to keep the dreary rain from drowning her face in black mascara. Rain smacked the leaves of the trees lining the street and plicked into mud puddles.

Mud puddles feared for their lives, always. Their existence was never certain. Here one day, gone the next. Occasionally one lucky mud puddle or two finds that it had a more secure destiny, say underneath a leaky pipe in someone’s basement. Even more unusual, although better for the social life, one puddle joins with hundreds of thousands and becomes a roaring flood. In a flood, puddles meet their long lost relatives, they go to dances, they party far into the night. But even then, floods disband, puddles becomes themselves again and slowly disappear. Absolutely no puddle wants to be born in the desert. Life in the desert is too fleeting to be worth it.

The desert yawns. Morning. Time to wake. Sand trickles as the desert blinks and shakes the cold off its dunes. It has a moment of conscious thought. The sun, why is it always so blinding? It makes me sleepy. Oh, and why in hells kitchen is the night so cold? Sleep is the only way to survive the cold. And so disgruntled muttering is all the desert has left to offer before sinking into deep sleep once again.

Sleep watches too many movies. Today, after spending a moment of smoothing down his mustache in front of the mirror, he decides to practice his Spanish accent. "Today, I shall be a phantom in the night. Today I shall be Zoro!" He spins his black cape over his shoulders and fastens it under his chin. He has a busy day ahead of him. Contrary to common thought, Sleep never sleeps. He stalks the corridors of college dorms during finals, he salsas through the office during broad daylight. He is of course deeply religious and would never think to skip a Sunday church service. He goes to all of them. But he's rather persnickety about traveling. He likes to fly... sometimes. But of course, Sleep prefers to travel in style. He requires lots of leg room, cushy seats that recline into a bed, gourmet food. And movies, lots of movies.

Leira tossed a handful of sand into the mud puddle and watched the rings spread out in ever larger circles. She yawned. Normally she would have thought that the circles in the puddle were quite profound, somehow philosophically representing the fleetingness of life as the circles encompassed more water but then faded out all together. Today, however was the last day of finals, the last day of slavery to her college career. All Leira wanted to do was go home and sleep. Or watch movies. Lots of movies.