When I first met the elderly man, he was sitting on the supermarket floor, leaning back against the laundry detergents in the cleaning supplies aisle. Thinking he had passed out, I bent down to shake him into consciousness. But then I noticed something strange. He was snoring.

“Should I call the manager?” asked an acne-faced stock boy who appeared out of nowhere, a look of innocent inexperience in his eyes. “Or an ambulance?”

“Wait a minute. Let me see if I can wake him up.”

The man on the floor opened his right eye, and his left eye followed. A smile formed on his lips. “Sorry about that,” he apologized.

“I thought you had fainted!”

“Oh, no, I don’t faint,” he replied. “I just fall asleep. Help me to my feet.”

He was about seventy, I guessed, and quite frail. He reached to the air freshener shelf for balance as he stood up. His glasses had dropped from his face, but they were held close to his chest by an eyeglass chain. His hair was thick, white, and wild. He introduced himself as Martin.

“I’ll be okay,” he said as he hobbled toward his shopping cart. I noticed it was empty except for a carton of slim milk, a container of low-fat goat yoghurt, an assortment of apples and oranges, and a large jar of dill pickles.

“Can I get you some water? Or maybe coffee to wake you up?” I said, holding him steady.

“Coffee would be nice,” he admitted.

We abandoned our shopping carts, to the displeasure of the stock boy, and I led Martin to the coffee counter at the far side of the supermarket. “Sit here,” I instructed him, pointing at a small table.

A few minutes later, after sipping black coffee powered up with three huge spoonfuls of sugar, Martin appeared to be fully awake. “I should explain,” he began.

“Drink your coffee,” I said, not expecting him to say anything more.

“I suffer from symptoms of narcolepsy. I fall asleep everywhere, at the most inappropriate times, in the most inappropriate places. I have no control over it.”

“You should see a doctor.”

“Oh, I do. Many doctors. They offer treatments to cure me of sleep deprivation, to improve my sleep-wake cycles, and to relieve my excessive drowsiness. They give me stimulants, pills that supposedly keep me awake. But nothing helps. The funny thing is that I sleep well at nights, no insomnia or anything. It’s the daytime that’s the problem, but taking a quick nap on the floor of a supermarket isn’t the best solution.”

“You shouldn’t be shopping on your own, Martin.” I felt a strange need to care for him, maybe because his thick head of white hair reminded me of my father.

“I shouldn’t be driving on my own, either.”

“You drive? You could fall asleep at the wheel!”

“If I didn’t do everything the doctors told me I shouldn’t do, I’d become a couch potato, dozing off in front of the television day and night.”

“Don’t you have someone to take care of you?”

“Sometimes my daughter visits,” he said, taking another sip of his over-sweetened coffee. “But she hasn’t come in a while. Maybe it’s this damn medicine I’ve been taking.”

“What medicine?”

“Something new the doctors insisted I try. I can’t remember its name. Anyway, it just seems to make the problem worse. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have fallen asleep here.”

“Should I call your daughter for you?”

“I can manage just fine on my own, thank you. But enough about me. What did you say your name was?” he asked.

“Steve,” I reminded him. I wondered if he had memory problems in addition to his sleep ailments.

“And what do you do for a living, Steve? When you’re not helping old farts like me get up from supermarket floors.”

“I work in advertising. I’m a copywriter.”

“I’m not sure what that means.”

“My firm has many clients and I am working on one of our accounts.”

What I didn’t tell Martin was that I was struggling to prepare a campaign for a pharmaceutical company’s new nonprescription drug. I had come up with copy that would focus on the benefits of the product without going into unnecessary detail about the drug itself. But working on this project as part of our creative team was a bigger challenge than anything I had previously handled in my job, and it was taking a high toll on my health. Worries about completing the project to both my boss Jordan’s satisfaction and the client’s approval were on my mind even now. Shopping for groceries on my way home from the office was more stressful than I had imagined.

“Advertising, you say?” Martin took one last sip of his coffee and stood up. “I better get going before I fall asleep at the table.”

“I’ll drive you home,” I insisted.

Martin lived in an assisted living complex. I followed him inside his apartment, carrying his groceries, and looked around at its sparse furnishings. He was a widower, he had told me, and evidence of living alone was apparent in a sink filled with dirty dishes and unlaundered clothing hanging over the backs of chairs. As I put the bags down on the kitchen table, I considered what more I could do to help.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done; it’s much appreciated,” he said, pushing me toward the door. “You should go. Your wife is probably wondering where you are.”

When I got home some twenty minutes later, Sheryl asked why I had been delayed. I didn’t go into many details of my meeting Martin, just saying I had driven an elderly shopper to his apartment.

Sheryl had prepared spinach lasagna for dinner, but as we ate, my mind kept wandering to the presentation I would give the next day. Everything depended on the slogan I would suggest to the client. Get the slogan just right, and everything else would fall into place. The problem was I didn’t have the words to convey the message Jordan and I had envisioned for the campaign.

“Do you want to stream a movie?” Sheryl asked, after we had cleared the dishes.

“Watch that show you enjoy and maybe I’ll join you later,” I said, opening my laptop. I needed to get back to work.

I logged into the office and loaded the PowerPoint presentation. Everything that had looked so promising earlier in the day now appeared amateurish, rough, and unrefined. I had nothing substantial to show for my efforts, nothing suitable for marketing the company’s new drug. We couldn’t ask for a postponement. Jordan kept reminding me we were already way behind schedule. Why was he so insistent that I present our ideas at the meeting? If I didn’t come up with something good, we would lose the account. And if that happened, I could be out of a job.

*-*-*

To say I didn’t sleep well that night was an understatement of epic proportions. I tossed and turned, the lack of a suitable slogan to lead the campaign and a string of our unconvincing visuals running through my mind. My work was far from ready for the client’s review.

Here’s what I was thinking. The pharmaceutical company’s new product would improve the health of its customers, but wasn’t that the purpose of all drugs and medicines? To keep them healthy?

Have a healthy day!

What kind of catch phrase was that? Simple words, but unrelated to the non-prescription drug coming on the market. They didn’t connect to the product and did nothing to encourage anyone to purchase it.

A proper diet. Exercise. A good night’s sleep. Stay healthy!

No, that didn’t work. What about changing the order?

Stay healthy with a proper diet, exercise, and a good night’s sleep!

Too many words for a slogan. What about…?

Different wording ran through my mind, most of it nonsensical. Long phrases with too much detail. Short phrases that didn’t explain the concept. Maybe the concept was wrong. Maybe no one would understand what I was trying to say. Maybe my ideas would not convince prospective customers. Would the client buy any of this?

It was not my finest hour, nor was the hour that followed. I could not fall asleep, unable to stop thinking of my unfinished presentation. The slogan that wasn’t a real slogan. Meaningless words. My slogan was way off track. I had wasted my time working in this direction. I realized it now. Jordan would see it. And, if this was what I presented in the meeting, the client would see it.

I turned to my side, hoping a new position would clear my mind, but Sheryl’s light, rhythmic breathing led to another cycle of work-related worries. I looked at the time. Barely half an hour had passed since the last time I checked.

I turned to my other side and an image of the white-haired man I had met that day popped into my mind. The man I had found sound asleep on the floor of the supermarket. Martin.

I fall asleep everywhere…

Why was I thinking about him, and his sleeping irregularities, when I had my own insomniac problems to deal with? I needed to sleep, to be fully awake and alert at the meeting. This damn advertising campaign was keeping me awake! Why couldn’t I fall asleep as easily as Martin?

Sleep. I needed to sleep.

Sleep.

*-*-*

“The idea is this. Your company makes many products and they all have one thing in common. They help customers stay healthy. Medicines that cure their illnesses. Vitamins and minerals that supplement their diets. Knee support pads and back braces that enable proper exercise. Shower gels and moisturizing body lotions that hydrate and nurture skin. Your new product follows in this same ‘keep them healthy’ tradition.”

I looked at the client sitting across the conference table from me. He was middle-aged, balding, and slightly overweight. He could certainly benefit from a daily exercise regimen, I thought. The woman at his side, younger and quite attractive, leaned forward in her seat, seemingly ready to pounce on my every word. I glanced at Jordan at my left, expecting to see him encouraged by my opening remarks, but he looked worried, and this made me pause.

My head was pounding. The restless night. The hurried breakfast. Foul weather. Traffic. The strong coffee I had hoped would jerk me awake, but failed to relieve my anxiety. I needed to focus on the presentation, not on how I was feeling.

I reached for the container of pain relief pills I had set before me on the table, popped two into my mouth, and downed them with a full glass of ice water. The client and his young assistant stared at me with wide eyes. They probably thought I was stalling! I clicked the button on my laptop to launch the presentation I had prepared.

“Steve…” Jordan had his hand on my arm, a concerned look in his eyes, but I winked at him, as if to say, “I’ve got this.”

On the screen, we could see a woman jogging through the park. A teenager surfing. An elderly couple sitting on a bench, smiling as they watched young children frolicking on playground swings. Young professionals enjoying takeaway coffee on their way to work. Teenagers holding hands. A bride and groom standing under a wedding canopy. Ordinary people, ordinary lives.

“Good health,” I said, pointing at the screen. “The benefits of a good diet, exercise, and a good night’s sleep.”

A good night’s sleep, something I was sorely missing. My eyes drooped as I tried to concentrate on the presentation. I clicked to the next slide.

‘Our product is safe and non-habit forming’, the words on the screen declared. ‘Nine out of ten doctors recommend…’ the next slide began. ‘Side effects may include…’ and then, in a tiny, almost undecipherable warning, ‘dyspnea, hyperglycemia, hypertension, hypokalemia, and…’. A seemingly endless list of terms only a doctor could interpret. And then some that are much more familiar to lay-people.

‘Fatigue and drowsiness.’

I rubbed my eyes. I looked at my colleagues, at the overweight client, at his beautiful associate. Why were their features so blurry? Why were they staring at me?

The presentation continued. Slide after slide. The advantages of our product, our message. A proper diet. Exercise. A good night’s sleep. Sleep…

“Steve, wake up!”

“What?”

Jordan stood at my side, shaking my shoulders as I fought the wave of total exhaustion that had suddenly engulfed me. I looked around the empty meeting room. The client was gone, but the PowerPoint slide was still on the screen, with our proposed slogan at its center.

“Steve, you fell asleep!”

“Did I?”

“One moment you were discussing the slogan, and the next moment your head was in your hands, and you were snoring away.”

“Snoring?”

“Yes, quite loudly. The client got very scared and left in a hurry. Why did you take those damn pills?”

“I had a splitting headache,” I said.

“You took two of these,” Jordan said.

I squinted at the orange plastic vial he was holding. The label came in and out of focus until I finally could make out the name of the product. BestSleep^TM.

“You opened one of the samples they brought us and popped two pills. What were you thinking? You know how quickly they work!”

BestSleep^TM – fall asleep quickly, safely, for the rest you need!

“What about the account?” I asked, fearing a reprimand.

Jordan shrugged, and I closed my eyes, holding my head in my hands. All I could think about was going back to sleep.

*-*-*

The next time I saw Martin was that evening in the supermarket, when I stopped with a short shopping list on my way home from the office. I turned into the cleaning supplies aisle and there he was, pushing a cart bearing a carton of slim milk, a container of low-fat goat yoghurt, an assortment of apples and oranges, and a large glass jar of dill pickles. Hadn’t he bought the same exact things the day before?

“You’re wide awake!” I said in greeting.

“I’ve been doing a lot better lately,” he informed me. “I no longer take sudden catnaps in the supermarket. In fact, it’s been quite a while since the last time I fell asleep in an inappropriate place, at an inappropriate time. Or, maybe it was yesterday? I don’t remember, but the important thing is, I no longer fall asleep everywhere!”

“You’re cured,” I said, as I pushed past him.

“Yes, ever since I stopped taking those damn pills.”

“Pills?”

“That new nonprescription drug the doctor insisted I try. What was it called? Oh, I remember. BestSleep^TM. New on the market. It really knocks you out, quickly and unexpectedly. You never know when and where. Not only that, the effects are long-lasting.”

“Long-lasting?”

“Yes, I would take two of those pills in the morning and hours later, I’d fall asleep instantly, sometimes while grocery shopping, as you very well know. I think I took two pills yesterday morning, but I don’t remember.”

My legs weakened as a wave of sudden drowsiness swept over me. Despite leaning on my shopping cart for balance, I was finding it hard to remain standing. I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

“BestSleep^TM. A very dangerous aid. Supposed to help old farts like me? Huh! I’ll never take it again. How are you, Steve? How is it going in your advertising career? What product are you trying to market now?”

“I need to rest for a moment,” I said. I sat down and leaned back against the containers of laundry detergent. “I need to close my eyes.”

And I began to snore.

– Ellis Shuman