The next film I saw was on a television screen. It was Sleeping Beauty. That film scared the shit out of me as a kid, and still does. People point out the relative disadvantage of being a passive and encased woman, pricked with a spindle, just laying there for a century. But the true privilege of the princess’ position—sleeping through a wretched and macabre 100 years—is less remarked on.

‘Not in death but just in sleep / the fateful prophecy you’ll keep’

Sleep is king (النوم سلطان) goes an Arab proverb.

Which 100 years would you choose to sleep through?

As for me, I approach sleep as a refugee, not so much for rest and pleasure as a submission to obscurity, pitch-blackness, the marionette’s curtains closing.

- “Killing the Angel in the House” by Maryam Monalisa Gharavi