A few words by Nicholas about a favorite activity

On Sleep

Sleeping is good.  To sleep heavy, to sleep light.  When it's bright or when it's dark.  But it's always dark underneath, curled up in the quiet and the warm.  It's always good to jump up there, to get on top and push at things, to find the way to get underneath.  And there in the dark, I yawn and scratch and move around to the best place.  And then I curl around myself and make myself warm and go to sleep.  I can sleep so long, it doesn't matter how long, and I don't need anything but the dark and the warm.

When the others are beside me, when it's dark and quiet, usually I curl up next to the small one.  Next to the large one, too, but not so often.  When it's dark and quiet, they move around, and then I have to move around, too, and find a nice place again.  Sometimes I crawl up from underneath, because it gets too warm, and I lie on top and sleep.  Sometimes I come up just a little, the rest underneath.  Sometimes I lie straight out, one of them behind me, and I stretch all the way out and touch the other, pushing against the other a little.  It feels nice to be with both of them, touching them.

When they are gone, both of them, and I don't know when they'll be back again, I stay underneath and sleep and sleep.  When I sleep heavy, sometimes I can't make myself wake up, until one of them comes and makes noises at me, wakes me up and pulls me out from underneath.  And I always stretch and yawn, I jump down and we go out.  But when I sleep light, sometimes I know they're coming soon, I think I hear things, and I come up from underneath.  And I listen.  I listen hard and I wait and wait.

Many times, the small one will pick me up and hold me, and I will curl up where the small one bends.  It's nice to sit there, but I can't really sleep like that.  And then the small one puts me down and I'll go and curl up in that little soft place that is mine, that smells like me.  But it's never really dark there and I can't ever sleep heavy there.

Sometimes I want the bright, though.  And when it's very bright, I go over and sit down in the brightest, warmest place.  I look right up into the bright and sniff at it.  I have to blink and squint at all that bright I like so much.   I lie down and pretend to sleep, there in the warm.  I can't really sleep, not with all that bright on me.  But I lie there because it's warm and it's very nice, until it's time to go and crawl back underneath and really sleep.