Meet Cousin O’Grady

Cousin O’Grady

A tall glass of Sleep Juice and a story that goes nowhere in particular

The voice: Warm, unhurried, and very slightly Irish
Home: Moss LandHome. Everyone in it is quietly getting sleepy
Part of: SleepThe ones whose whole job is getting you there.
How home goes to sleep: It goes to sleep when its stepping stones stop rocking.

The story of Cousin O’Grady

Cousin O’Grady is exactly the same creature as Auntie Dozer, and that is deliberate. Same build, same round earless head, same little dotted snout, same enormous teal-green eyes, same four arms in two pairs and four small three-fingered hands. He is family, and you can see it before anybody says so. What tells him apart is green. A green flat cap and a green waistcoat over a cream shirt, in every single frame, without exception — because the moment the green is missing he is simply Auntie Dozer in a hat. And a short soft copper-ginger beard along his jaw, thick copper brows, and freckles across the snout. Those came later and they were needed. In one of his lower hands there is always a tall glass of Sleep Juice, soft lavender-purple with a thick creamy top. He is never shown drinking it and nobody ever remarks on it. It is simply what he is holding, the way Auntie Dozer is simply wearing a nightcap. His method is the cosy uncle’s method, which is older than any of us: settle in, hold something warm, and start a story that is in no hurry whatsoever to arrive anywhere. It goes on. It doubles back. It stops to explain something that did not need explaining. And by the time it would have got to the point, if it had one, everybody in the room is long gone.