The Man Who Gave Up Sleeping by Adam Acidophilus

A man woke up one morning and vowed that he would never sleep again. "For sleep . . ." he reflected, "is responsible for all of my problems."

He was often in trouble with his employer – because he'd overslept! Holidays had been ruined – because he couldn't find a place to sleep! Girlfriends had left town – because they didn't want to sleep with him!

"Civilisation . . . " he deduced, "has surrendered to a primeval urge."

So the man disposed of all his possessions related to sleep – his duvet, his bed, his alarm clock and his panda. But it occurred to him that if he didn't need to sleep then he didn't need a home at all – so he moved out of his room and halved his living costs.

He found a lucrative new job, working nights, and was therefore free to spend his days in the library, or at the cinema, or merely walking the streets with an air of superiority.

"Pathetic!" he would mutter – slapping their faces and rousing them in the small hours. "You are weak and anxious to conform!"

So instead he took to standing in bus shelters or on street corners and dispensing unsolicited advice. "Sleep . . . " he would quip, "is the vice of women and homosexuals."

The man who gave up sleeping attracted a cult following composed of insomniacs seeking new direction, lunatics, and people who slept normally but felt that they were wrong to do so. Meetings were held where the man would deliver an emotive rallying cry.

"Did you know?" he would cry, emotively, "that by giving up sleeping I have effectively lived for an extra ten years?"

"That's right!" he would continue – his arithmetic befuddled by fatigue – "eight extra hours per day for six months is, ur, ten years! Just think, fifty per cent wiser than a man of twice my age!"

The word spread. Documentaries were made. People wrote songs about him. The land was divided by the debate.

The anti-sleep cult developed the view that sleeping should be discouraged; certain television programmes and children's stories were accused of being biased – particularly bedtime stories. A militant splinter group carried out covert raids, setting off burglar alarms and car horns in the middle of the night.

This provoked a counter movement – financed by the bedroom furniture industry – which sabotaged clocks and stole coffee.

Peace talks between the two sides collapsed, as one side refused to adjourn at night so that the other side could go home to sleep.

A compromise formula – that everybody should get up at two in the morning for half an hour – found no support anywhere.

Their consciences untroubled by poor sleep or bad dreams, the rebels adopted crueller tactics – deliberately dialling wrong numbers after midnight, and throwing wild parties on weekday evenings. When they added stimulants to the public water supply, the opposition retaliated with depressants. The public responded with irregular hours and headaches.

The health of the nation began to falter – the economy began to tremble.

The strain began to tell on the man who gave up sleeping – he started sleeping again, in secret. But he was caught napping by the media and confessed at an emotional press conference.

"I have nothing to be ashamed of," he sobbed, "I am not a hypocrite! I am merely a prisoner of paradoxical circumstances."