Little Sleepy Weepins never wanted to go to sleep. When his parents would try to put him to bed, he would cry and throw a fit and bang his little head on the floor. It totally freaked out everyone in the house, especially the pets.

“I’m not tired!” he would cry.

“Little Sleepy Weepins, I think you’re being very disingenuous right now,” his mother would say.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” his father would say.

Finally, his parents decided that instead of redoing the kitchen that year, which they both agreed was way overdue, they would spend the money on a wizard who could maybe figure out what the heck was going on.

On the day the wizard arrived, he could tell right away that things had gotten totally out of hand. There were a ton of dishes piled up in the sink, the ferns were wilty as shit, and the cat had clearly been in the butter.

“Thank god you’re here!” yelled the mom as soon as she saw the wizard. “No one here has slept in days, and I think I’m starting to hallucinate. Please do something!”

“I’ll do my best,” said the wizard, knowing full well he could just cast sleep on the kid and be out of there in like two minutes. “Where is the little guy?”

Little Sleepy Weepins’ mom took him to a bedroom where Little Sleepy Weepins sat surrounded by broken toys. As soon as he saw the wizard, he burst into tears and shouted, “Who is that man? I don’t like him! Make him go!”

“There there,” said the Wizard, taking out his wand. “Everything will seem much better after you take a little nap.”

“Wait!” yelled the mom, grabbing the wizard by the arm (which is a great thing to do if you want to get turned into a slug by a pissed off wizard), “Don’t cast a spell on him! I heard it causes autism!”

“What?” said the wizard. “I’m pretty sure there isn’t any scientific evidence to support such a claim.”

“No, no!” said the mom. “It’s true! My sister said she heard it from a friend of hers who works in an apothecary’s office. They just don’t want you to know about it because then the big herbalist companies would lose too much money.”

“Dear sweet monkey god Kanahsas,” said the wizard. “Fine, but this is going to cost you extra.”

He walked across the room and scooped up Little Sleepy Weepins in one arm. “Look kid,” he said, “what exactly is your problem?”

“I don’t wanna go to bed!” screamed Little Sleepy Weepins. “Also, a stranger is touching me without my consent!”

“Fine fine fine,” said the wizard, setting Little Sleepy Weepins down on his bed. “I’m not touching you anymore. Now come on, you might not be tired, but everyone else in the house is, and you keep making a racket so they can’t go to sleep. What you if you just laid quietly in your bed for a bit, so they could get a nap?”

“No!” screamed Little Sleepy Weepins. “That’s boooooooring!”

“Okay,” said the wizard. “What if I told you a story?”

And before the boy could scream something about not wanting to hear a story, the wizard launched into his tale.

The Wizard’s Tale

Once there was a young prince who never wanted to sleep. He was a huge pain in the ass about it and kept the whole kingdom up with his moaning and bitching. After a while, his cries reached a dragon who lived high up in the mountains on the far side of the kingdom. The dragon was so upset by being woken up that she flew all the way to the castle and burned it down. Then she burned down all of the inns and cottages and barns in the whole kingdom. After that everyone was able to sleep forever because they were dead.

Little Sleepy Weepins stared at the wizard with wide terrified eyes, not making sound. After a few minutes, his mouth dropped open, and a loud snore came out.

“That’ll be 50 gold,” said the wizard, grabbing his cloak and heading towards the door.

Little Sleepy Weepins’ parents handed the money to the wizard without saying a word. He took the money, put it into one of the pockets in his cloak, walked out the door, and never looked back.

Obviously, he had secretly cast a sleep spell on the kid halfway through the story, but there was no reason anyone had to know that.