in a small, removed town, when dawn was breaking and the day was fresh; when insects whispered excitedly to the morning dew, of which one drop could satisfy the most dire of thirsts; when the world gently, and in motherly fashion, cast her sunlight upon humanity as a reminder to rouse for the coming day, there was a boy who would not wake.
the boy's name was thane huxley. it did not take long before his family realized they could not break him from his slumber, and soon his friends were invited to see him sleeping soundly in his cabin and shortly thereafter, the whole community was abuzz with news of event. as is normal for most hamlets, word flew from one end to the other at an uncanny pace and fairly soon, the whole town was in quite a stir with rumours of the sleep-disposed lad.
the only doctor for miles around was called upon, and he paid thane a visit. he used prongs and tongs and instruments of all sorts, poking and prodding and medicating in every which way. as he worked his brow became furrowed and sweat-soaked and a crowd of on-lookers gathered round. after what felt like ages, the doctor emerged from the house followed by a throng of interested parties, and announced that he could not wake this boy, and that the boy was in fact, a boy who could not be woken.
the days passed meandered slowly through the harvest season, and so too did the villager's speculation, for this is the way of gossip. all manner of theories were put forth, claiming to be reasonable (and sometimes not-so-reasonable) explanations for why thane huxley could not be roused. some said that he had eaten something peculiar the day before, a berry or an herb, and that that must be the cause. others proposed that thane was caught up in a particularly inviting dream and that his consciousness simply preferred the dream to reality. a smaller group in the community spoke in hushed voices that thane was under the taint of something dark and sinister, a power not of nature, not of man, and not of god.
as time went on and the days grew to months, the talk died away and most people put thane out of their heads and hardily ploughed on with things they felt must be done, their jobs and chores, and so forth and so on. only thane's family continued to check on him once each day, because though he was expending very little energy, he was still growing quite thin.
then, one day, when thane's mother stopped by her son's room to see how he fared, he was nowhere to be seen. in a panic she sprang into a diligent search and though it was only an hour later, it had been a frantic hour in her life, she found him cutting wood for a fire about a league away.
"son!" she cried, her face tearing with joy of being able to speak to him "what happened?! are you alright?! why did you not wake?"
"mother," he replied innocently "i was tired."