Tightrope

Should We Slap Him?

"Should we slap him?"

Daria stroked her chin thoughtfully. "I just don't know that it would work. What do you think?"

"I think it would be fun?" I offered.

Daria looked down, considering. Jonah's sleeping form was unbearably tempting for general physical abuse; in a non-problematic he-asked-me-to-do-it friendship kind of way. Jonah's dark hair was flopping lazily over his forehead and his chest was rising and falling with shallow breaths. Back in the day—when Jonah and I had been so close we were practically siblings—we used to have so many sleepovers that a sleeping Jonah was practically a fixture in my house. That closeness apparently meant that it was my responsibility to wake him up at the butt crack of dawn, far earlier than I ever would get up, to give him adequate time to properly reach consciousness. Maybe because I had the key to his bedroom window.

Obviously, Daria was always up at 5AM to work out or, like, get dressed by her animal friends and sing songs—whatever productive human Disney characters did with their time—so I'd roped her in to Jonah duty.

Daria, who was apparently, and predictably, not on board with my slapping plan, bent her head over Jonah and shook his shoulder lightly. "Hey, Jonah?" she said softly. "Time to wake up."

Jonah did not even stir. He just carried on sleeping, vaguely coma-esque, without even a muscle twitch. Jonah had a gift, honestly. Daria looked up at me helplessly. Daria had only joined our group last year—despite always being friendly—so she was not yet completely accustomed to Jonah's ability to completely disassociate with reality in sleep; an unawakenable lump of Jonah. Daria did not seem to realise that a light request to awaken could not stir the fondly dubbed 'Jonah-in-a-coma'.

"So," I said hedgingly. "Can I slap him now?"

"Then he'll wake up even crankier," Daria pointed out. "He has enough attitude problems as is."

I threw a hand over my mouth. "Daria," I said. "Did you just give someone a non-positive descriptor?"

"No!" Daria cried, bumping our shoulders together in amicable protest. "I like cranky Jonah. He's funny. That wasn't supposed to be insulting."

I poked her in the ribs. "A crack! She has cracked!"

Daria giggled and tugged fondly on my dark braid. "Shh, it wasn't mean. We love Jonah."

"'Cos I'm delightful," Jonah mumbled.

Daria pointed gleefully. "See, he's awake. Didn't even need to slap him."

I raised an eyebrow. "You wanna bet?" I said, motioning to the now snoring Jonah. Daria was gaping. "Yeah, no, he can both talk and be asleep. He is the sleeping god."

Jonah snuggled into his pillow, nuzzling his head against it like a lover. That pillow was the only romantic relationship Jonah ever needed in his life.

Daria was silent for a beat. "Okay, you can slap him now."

I looked at her regretfully. "It is the only way."

Jonah groaned. "No slapsies," he said sleepily.

I slapped him.

Jonah jolted slightly, lazily stretching his long limbs skyward. Not even a slap would stir Jonah into rapid motion. "Morning, pals," he said sleepily.

"Morning, Jonah," said Daria chirpily. "Time to get up!"

"World is cold. Blankets not cold. I choose blankets."

I could hardly fault Jonah's logic, at least. The world was cold and awful and full of stupid boys who decided to make out with their enemies with no thought for the consequences of such foolhardy actions.