In the small hours, the world below Gabriel’s window began to swell with life but he took no notice. He had long learned to tune out the screech of traffic, the mechanical whirr of the going-home trains, the gossipy throngs of partygoers on a Friday night. He was in-between — his sorry and familiar state of being — mist wreathed around his eyes and mind as he scrolled on Instagram, pictures of grinning couples and lopsided ceramics and the poisonous blue of Santorini’s sky flashing by in a brilliant streak. As usual, he attempted the crucible of bedtime. He listened to the low throb of brown noise. He went through the alphabet, naming a film for each letter — when that got too exciting, he resorted to vegetables. He loaded up a narrated sleep aid, read by Alexander Skarsgård, but that made him too horny, so he gave up.

There was a film between Gabriel and the world and another between Gabriel and oblivion; it was a thin barrier, but a viscous one. He got stuck and was never let through.

Around two or three, he heard the clatter of the front door downstairs, soles clacking against wood in an intimate cluster. The walls and floors of this townhouse were thin, something he and James learned early, whenever a guest would crash on the couch and the subsequent morning was barbed with sideways glances: yes, I heard every harsh word, every confession, every embarrassing grunt you’d thought was strategically muffled.

“Shhhh,” he heard Camille hiss downstairs, clear as a bell, “he’s sleeping!”

“No, he’s fucking not,” James said, then laughed — his booming, violent laugh, Gabriel’s favourite sound in the world. Such a laugh, free of self-consciousness, made people feel at ease, it carried its own authority; soon their friends were chattering at full volume, drifting over to the kitchen where they jangled the glassware, shucked their coats, pulled back chairs. Gabriel picked out James — a heavy-footed, swaying gait — and realised he was very happy and very drunk. Directly below Gabriel’s bed, Andy burst into a rendition of Waving Through The Window and the others intermittently joined in. Mocking and horribly off-key at first, giggles rising through the floorboards, before growing increasingly earnest. The amateur harmonies locked in passion; their voices sweetened.

Gabriel felt anchored by the choir. He let it tug at him, pulling him downstairs, where he could easily tuck himself among them, observing wordlessly from his favourite chair. He could get up now, make it all real. Or he could stay here. He was in-between and there was a comfort in that: being weighed down by his doona, hearing everything, the bedroom door slightly ajar. The possibility warm and open.

He mulled over the decision for a long time — or perhaps it was a short while, time had been funny lately — when he realised the volume had dropped. He knew they were discussing him: whenever they did, his noisy friends became skittish murmurers. He made no attempt to guess what they could be saying. Gabriel knew he was an uncharitable person who enjoyed putting ugly words in the mouths of his friends; this had the effect of changing their shape in his mind, and this new, deformed shape loomed until it became a real threat, a creature that could rear up on its hind legs and disembowel him. But he was trying to change! He was trying to sleep! Gabriel was so busy willing himself to change, to avoid guessing, that he hadn’t noticed that the hush had transitioned into a leaden silence. The townhouse was empty now and James’ boots were creaking up the stairs.

The bedroom door swung open. An acid yellow shaft of light sliced through the murk. James was standing in the doorway, swallowed up by a huge fur coat that belonged to Camille; his twig-like legs stuck out and his silhouette resembled a menacing Christmas tree.

“What sheep are we on?”

“Hmm?” Gabriel asked, trying to sound drowsier than he was.

“At this point, you usually give up the fancy shit and get old fashioned.”

Gabriel laughed. “Yeah. I imagined them jumping over a barbed wire fence.” He shuffled over as James lurched into the room, smelling of tobacco and gin, gawky limbs banging into the dresser, the coat rack, the corner of the bedframe — he was unfazed, marching stubbornly on, pain glancing off him. He collapsed onto Gabriel’s chest without undressing, the smell of bars and smoky living rooms infused in every pore, in the patchwork tufts of rabbit fur. Gabriel experienced a whole night, a night he did not live, in one inhale, memories thick in his nostrils.

When James kissed him, his mouth tasted filthy — the rich taste of booze and pub steak and too much saliva. More little memories. The tangible grit made Gabriel realise they hadn’t kissed properly in a long time; the sensation was almost alien. Briefly, his thoughts flickered to when they first met, the only time when he felt like his insomnia was a gift: staying awake felt thrilling rather than helpless, and there was no fog, only more jokes, more stories, more kisses, more precious focus.

“Why barbed wire?” James asked against his chin, voice slurred. “How can you focus on counting if you’re poking holes into the poor little Shauns?”

“Well, that’s the problem. I get so bored and being bored makes me sleepy but not sleepy enough to actually sleep so I’m more frustrated than ever, so then I start thinking up an obstacle to make it slightly less boring but then the obstacle becomes a plot, and the plot is too stimulating.” Gabriel took a breath. “Also, I realised I can’t count. I get confused when I go past ten thousand.”

“Ha!” James snorted. “You’re too stupid to sleep.”

He laughed — that garrulous, rattling laugh — the bass of it reverberating through Gabriel’s whole body. He laughed until he ran out of breath and started to wheeze, until the wheezing evened out and there were no more words left between them, James staring at Gabriel with his eyes glazed. He was falling asleep. Typically, Gabriel would be pissed off by now. It was annoying that he had tried to express genuine frustration, that he was sick, that James knew he was sick, but they had both made it a punchline. It was annoying that James was still wearing his muddy shoes, that he was hogging all the space in this bed, in this apartment. But James looked uncharacteristically gentle in the night-time gloom. His smooth, unlined face didn’t match the deformed creature in Gabriel’s mind. Heavy-lidded and childlike, James was close to piercing that elusive veil, and Gabriel envied him and loved him.

Gabriel traced the bridge of James’ nose, forefinger massaging the knot there — the only evidence of a violent break, somewhere in a faraway childhood. James made a weak sound, a pitiful attempt at protest; in the waking world, he would have jerked back, furious and primed for an explosive argument. They were both in-between, for the merest moment, and they were both forgiving.

The moment ended. James’ eyes slipped shut, his chest rising and falling. Nice, even crests. The snores would come soon.

Gabriel shut his eyes too, play-acting, and half-heartedly reached for the same state while knowing he would fail. The trick he’d be told — by fellow nocturnal sufferers — was to avoid thinking about failure. Thinking about not sleeping led to anxiety about not sleeping which led to more not sleeping: a Gordian knot of failures. It was quiet now — the partygoers had gone home, the trains and cars were long gone, the lights dim and James on another plane — and all Gabriel could think about was how unbearably alone he was.

But Gabriel was not alone, no matter how far his woolly thoughts stretched, and how eternal time felt. There was the hum of the space heater, of the steadfast streetlights outside, and the old fir tap-tap-tapping against the window. There were all the crepuscular beings, stalking the boundary: street cats mating and scratching and yowling, the possums in the boughs, the song of crickets. There was his neighbour, a hunched man occasionally glimpsed through blackout curtains, who — every night at around this time — let out a low-pitched, droning howl that echoed down two streets. There was the ballast of James’ warm weight against him, poking him in the ribs, numbing his left side. Gabriel had long learned to tune these things out, but they existed, they announced their restless life. There was no end. And despite his ignoring, his guessing, his self-pity, Gabriel recognised them. However distant, they were lodged in his subconscious as he drifted towards the rim of the universe, a strange old choir that tapered into a coda with the chirps of magpies and whipbirds in the early dawn. He was listening now, unsure if he was still awake or dreaming, somewhere beyond rest.