Sedentary Nomad.

My stepson had taken to living in a tent he has set up in the middle of his room like some sort of insane futuristic sedentary (Zoology definition) nomad.

He used to keep the door zipped up but he started waking up unrested and with brutal headaches. So I convinced him that having the door shut was not only a fire hazard (as he would be certainly burned to death covered in molten plastic if there was a fire) but that he was becoming more brain damaged by the day through oxygen deprivation.

He thoroughly disagreed and told me he could escape no matter how smokey or late it was and started zipping it secretly closed when I had left the room.

So I devised operation MIDNIGHT FIRE.

I went into his room at 4 am and yelled

“FIRE!! FIRE !! FIRE !! – escape from your melting tent !”

He sprung up , owning himself on the roof of the tent, then he sprang forward into the wall to the left of the zippered opening . He spent almost 20 seconds fumbling in the dark for the zip, before turning to the opposite side of the opening and looking there.

He must have been doing this in a somnambulistic trance because after not being able to find it he lay back down and went to sleep again.

I dragged him out of the tent, and explained that he had been killed by the fire and was now mummified in hot plastic. He sleepily and silently regarded me with one eye open.

I explained to him what took place during the midnight drill on the morrow next and had no memory of any of it.

So I devised operation THE DOOR STAYS OPEN AT ALL TIMES.

But its been a month now and this weird 29.95 kids tent in the middle of his room is starting to piss me off.

BUT I hearken back to a day when I was 14.

I saw a bleak future for myself wherin I wound up drifting from place to place and taking shelter where I could- a bus station floor here – beneath a bridge there….

So I got rid of my bed, and for three months allowed my self only the carpet of my room to sleep on and a thin grey wool army blanket as a coverlet. From this I gained the power to sleep on any surface with minimal warmth , and when my own prophecy came true I bedded down on wooden university walkways and stained post partyied floors with only my woolen trench coat keep me safe and my rage to keep me warm.

Maybe my stepsons generation will have to survive in cheap plastic tents in some strange and brutal future where it rains poison indoors at night….

If so HE WILL BE READY.