Louise’s note: this is the extra hallucination scene that Thea has as she struggles to stay awake. It had to be cut for pace purposes but I still love the seal… 

She was never going to get the seal down those steps. The lighthouse light flashed full in her face again. How long would that need to be rotating? It really wasn’t helping.

“The stained glass is so pretty, I want to stay here,” said the seal in a surprisingly deep voice. He had long, white whiskers and every time he moved, he thumped so hard on the walkway around the light that it trembled.

            The stained glass was pretty. The seal was right. Each large pane depicted a different story: here was one which showed Moses attaching the discs and wires to Ted and they’d even managed to get in his skull tattoo, there was another showing the three of them at the monastery, a tiny Rosie waving from the window. There were some that Thea didn’t look too closely at though, she didn’t like the death ones with their ruby glass blood.

            She peered out at the sea around them. The boat should be on its way now; that’s why she’d got the lighthouse working, so the little vessel wouldn’t crash on the rocks. She had to keep an eye out for it… and this seal had to be down those steps by that time.

“Come on,” she said sternly to the seal.

He shook his head stubbornly and crossed his flippers like arms, then yawned, puffing out a rank smell of decaying fish right into her face.

“Nope. I like it here. There’s a good view. And the whales can’t get to me.”

He reclined back onto the walkway, his body a massive, rounded, blubbery curve.

            Well, now this was just perfect! It was going to be difficult enough getting him down the steps, he’d probably wedge tight, but he could at least have helped a little.

“There’s no water up here,” she tried.

The seal cleared its throat. “Nice try, missy. Wikipedia says technically, seals don't ever have to actually be IN the water. As long as we get sufficient water in our diet, and the temperature is cool enough, we'll be fine. So there. You could bring me drinks.”

The seal was half sitting up with glasses perched on its nose and was tapping at a laptop with a flipper.

“Hey!” Thea said. “You shouldn’t be on that laptop! You’ll smudge the screen.”

“I like the funny videos. See?”

The seal turned the screen to face her and she saw a night vision shot of someone asleep in bed.

“I like the funny human videos. Watch this one!”

“Do you have wi-fi?” she asked. She couldn’t believe he had wi-fi and hadn’t told her. He was really starting to get on her nerves.

The seal looked up craftily, “No, I downloaded these earlier.”

“You do, don’t you?”

She tried to grab the laptop; she could video-call her mother if there was wi-fi, she hadn’t done that for a while and her mother got sniffy if she felt she was being forgotten. The seal swallowed the laptop in one big gulp. Like a snake, she could see his throat working it down his neck. He crossed his flippers again, looking pleased with himself.

            Right! That was it, she was leaving! The seal blocked the doorway to the stairs, but she could just open this window next to her, the stained-glass panes opened outwards anyway. She turned a little brass handle and the glass swung inwards.

“Hey!” The seal waggled a flipper at her. “Close that window! The whales might get in!”

Out she stepped. There was another narrow balcony around the outside of the light. Ah… that was better, there was no more smell of rancid fish and she could see clearer out here, her view wasn’t distorted by the coloured glass.

Where was the boat?

She should have been able to see it by now. When they got here they could help her with the damn seal; they shouldn’t have left it with her in the first place.

Another wave of light washed over her…

Louise’s note: this was meant to go right at the end to show how the Morpheus sleep technology continues to find new customers but it had to be cut, again for pace purposes…

Below the room’s open window, a bus drove past.

            On it was a woman. Middle-aged, middling height, mid-brown hair. A little boy of about eight sat next to her, the light from the screen into which he was absorbed giving his face an otherworldly glow. She looked at it, sighed and went back to glancing anxiously at her watch.

            The little boy wore a school uniform but the schools had welcomed their pupils inside hours ago.

            “We’re nearly there, Ben. Give mummy the tablet now.”

            Ben kicked his feet against the chair in front and didn’t look up.

            “Ben!”

            He handed it over sullenly, then gave his mother a defiant look, “Daddy says we need to get you a better alarm clock,” he said loudly. Too loudly.

            Under her coat, the woman was still wearing her pyjama top.

            “How helpful of daddy,” she muttered to herself.

            “To wake you up better,” the boy continued, not listening to his mother. “My teacher says that only lazy people get up late on weekdays. Slug-a-beds! That’s what she called the lazy people!” His voice got louder still. “Slug-a-beds! Slug-a-beds! Slug-a-beds!”

            He kicked the chair in rhythm with his words.

            “Slug-a—”

            “Shush!”

            She pressed the bell. There were dark, puffy circles under her eyes that had very little white left in the whites of them.

            “Daddy says you should go to bed earlier.”

            “Daddy is full of wonderful ideas, isn’t he?” The woman said in a tone bright enough to stun.

            Grasping her little boy’s hand, they both swayed up the aisle of the bus and waited for it to stop. She could see the school from where they stood, the red brickwork adorned with a colourful mural of hands joined together as painted butterflies flitted around. The gates were shut.

            The bus jerked to a halt and they both got off. The woman was busy thinking how she’d have to press the intercom on the gate and how snooty the school secretary would be as she let them in, how she’d tip-tap on her computer to “once again” record their lateness.

            “Slug-a-beds, slug-a-beds, slug-a-beds,” the little boy sang to himself.

            The woman pulled him by the hand, yanking him more forcefully than perhaps she needed to and stepped into the road, her brain busy thinking about gates and secretaries and lists on computers…

            … there was the screech of brakes.

            The woman wasn’t thinking anymore. She was only breathing, great big gulping breaths as her little boy stood, rigid and silent, beside her.

            The car had stopped so close to her she could feel the heat coming from it.

            “Watch where you’re going!” The driver stuck his head out of the window, his face a red blotch.

            She looked down, she was still standing, still breathing, still had all her limbs and none of them were broken. Her hand still clutched the little boy at her side.

             “I…” But no more words would come.

            She stumbled back to the pavement and sank onto a bench, her legs weak, the boy white-faced and watchful. The car roared on.

(and then she gets the Morpheus notification: Morpheus - dream your way to a better you, one sleep at a time…)