The night world

Sleepy Sleepland

Eight places, in the order water travels — a spring is where water begins and the sea is where it ends, so the order can never drift. Nothing goes wrong on the way, nobody gets lost, and no question is ever raised.

The child is promised something wonderful — you will enter Dreamy Dream Land — and the walk is how you get there. The arrival happens in the bed, not on the screen.

The places

The Sleepy Forest

Where the trees close their eyes one branch at a time

The Sleepy Springs

Where the water begins, coming out of the ground

The Snoozy Stream

The willow and the crossing. Never “Sleepy Stream”

The Sleepy Waterfall

Where the water slows to a murmur and stays there

The Sleepy Lake

You cannot see the other side

The Starlit Shore

Stars in the water. The threshold between the lake and the sea

The Sleepy Sea

It breathes. Heard, never arrived at

The Moonlit Hollow

A sibling hollow, off the route, under a full moon

The Rainfall Hollow

The same hollow, in warm rain

The Snowfall Hollow

The same hollow, under snow

The Cloud Meadow

The same hollow, up in the cloud tops

Tardy’s Home

The mushroom house at the end of the path

Tardy’s Bedroom

Where the arrival actually happens — never on screen

The Crescent Moon

Up where the stars go out one by one

Space

Thirty years asleep and none the worse for it

Lair Bear’s Cave

Warm, dark and safe, for the very longest sleeps

Who you will meet

Stories from Sleepy Sleepland