When John woke up, he didn’t know where he was. He gazed at the monochrome ceiling, the photos and drawings hung on the walls, the books and newspapers scattered on either side of the nightstand. He became aware of the dust blanketing the floor, asked himself to whom do these balled-up pants belong. A breeze of fresh air passed over his face. Lifting his head, he discovered a slightly ajar window framing a neither blue nor white sky.

At the end of a long, echoing yawn, he understood he was home. To be more precise, in his own bedroom, in his own bed.

Once up, John indulged in a yoga session, linked to some meditation. Harmony regained, energy restored, he ate, washed up, chose his clothes carefully. Examined the time displayed on his phone’s screen. And went back to bed.

John is without a doubt a gifted and promising poet, but first and foremost he is unemployed, unread and unpublished. John also has a problem worth noting: he is incapable of getting up before noon. On top of that, John suffers from a second problem: in the afternoon, his body demands a nap. Still, this second problem wouldn’t be anything without problem number three, which can be linked to problem number one, about which many would argue there is no smoke without fire: John ends up completely wasted every night.

If you knew what he’d put in his mouth the day before, you wouldn’t expect anything from him the next morning. Morning: he’s almost forgotten to what this word refers. If, by chance, he happens to open his eyes and it’s morning, he tells himself there really is no morning. And goes back to sleep. You won’t hear anything from him before the start of the afternoon.

If it were up to John, he would only sleep. For that matter, he does practically nothing else. He spends his time drinking, eating and sleeping.

As a result, he has no time to spend on other things. John no longer reads. John no longer attends readings. John doesn’t set foot in the Centre for Public Poetry. John receives publication proposals from magazines, poetry associations invite him to give readings in exchange for a fee, meal, drinks, lodging for a night, but he doesn’t follow up. Since he went to bed for good, he’s stopped writing. Sometimes in the evening a poem comes into his head, but during the night the poem escapes him, and the next morning there is no more poem in his head. In his head, there’s only a killer migraine.

John opens his eyes, rubs them with his fist. He moves an arm, breathes, coughs, grunts, scratches his head. He deciphers the time displayed in red characters on the lit-up screen of his blackberry-coloured phone. 2:07 p.m. What is there to do now? John gets up, puts his hands on his waist, yawns, drags his feet over to his kitchenette, makes himself a nice black coffee and drinks it, goes back to lie down on the bed, yawns and yawns again, trying to remember his night.

That night Andy watched John sleep, kept vigil over his friend and, like every morning, got out of bed bright and early.

The telephone rings in John’s bedroom.

Normally, John tells Andy about his night. Today, Andy takes the floor.

Andy has his exhibition.