Wombat was close to losing consciousness. His forehead sweated, dribbling over his snout, down into the mattress. “Wh-wh-whyy? he thought, “surely this isn’t an ideal way to go?”
The ten digits wavered in front of his eyes, looking more like twenty, or thirty, or fifty small orbs, dim amongst the dark. The warmth blanketing him in a deathly coziness, and suddenly he was jolted further into the darkness. The orbs splitting in half; drifting away softly, and urgently following his descent, all at the same time. Muffled grunts and groans hovered in the distance, out in the beyond. Claustrophobia closed in. The wedge of digits, the taut strain of constriction. The feeling of being held at the edge of a great drop. His breath laboured with panic, sweat swimming in a deluge down his straining nostrils and the crevasses and hollows of his flattened ears.
And suddenly, a shift. A sense of release and falling. Falling softly over that edge. Space. The stale scent of shrouded dark rushing away above the dim. And then whoomph! A soft landing, a bounce and roll. Peace. Quiet.
Doubt.
Worry.
Loneliness.
“Muuuuuum! Where’s Wombat???? Muuuuuum!!”
“Shhhhh darling, he’s just fallen out the bottom of the bed. Here you go. Snuggle down with Wombat; back to sleep.”
“See you in the morning.”