Sleepless - 212 hrs and 16 minutes

Anything could happen, he had promised them.

Rats totally deprived of sleep die between 17 and 20 days: their hair starts falling out, and they become hypermetabolic, burning calories whilst motionless. He rubbed the loose skin surrounding his stomach. The dermis and hypodermis were taking a beating. Proteins were being reabsorbed and his skin was beginning to sag around his waistband like sap around a rubber tree.

He was aging rapidly. Until the diagnosis he’d boxed, fenced twice a week and swam religiously every morning before work. He’d sidestepped his late 30’s and the stagnation of middle age. The vigour from his youth hadn’t left him; it had just become disciplined, less erratic. That was, until he had lowered his guard and the tumour had knocked him down with a sly sucker punch.

‘Life tastes like canvas’, he murmured and swivelled round to a flickering console. The website had registered over 4,000 hits that day and it was only just approaching 9am. He’d long ago given up reading all the messages. Most of them didn’t make sense due to the heavy reliance on abbreviations and bad punctuation. Initially he’d hoped the national press might have got hold of the story, but only the student rag had run a short piece titled ‘The Tired God Doctor’:

‘In a tatty grey room, somewhere deep in the heart of South London, behind a locked door, our very own ‘God Doctor’, is, as we go to print, carrying out a sleep deprivation study as part of his recent foray into oncological research.

The u-turn in his research, which, until last year, he had devoted 25 years to Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis (CIPA), has baffled those closest to him. Professor Ederidge, Head of the Faculty of Medicine said last night:

‘The Faculty of Medicine has made it clear that this research, whilst it does not contravene any ethical guidelines, cannot be condoned. We hope that those students interested in his research will refrain from donating the ‘sponsorship’ he is levying to watch this ridiculous on-line spectacle.’

You can contact Dr…..’ He put the article down.

It was a spectacle. A ghoulish scenario that he desperately needed to share with anyone prepared to pay up and there were plenty of those. They had to pay. Had to tuck in a couple of quid behind his G-string as he spasmed furiously in front of the camera for them. Showed them pictures of his body as it underwent the slow physical transformation.

He removed his glasses and took a digital photo of his left eye, which had begun to haemorrhage.

TBC