I slept through my first apocalypse, and it was awesome

I am extremely sleepy 24/7. Always have been. When I was three, my mom tricked me into getting a haircut by promising it would be fun, but I fell asleep in the salon chair.<br><br>I slept through the birth of my little sister. Literally - we were in the same hospital room, and I was too busy snoring away to realize my mom was pushing out a watermelon.<br><br>It’s called Kleine-Levin Syndrome, or “sleeping beauty syndrome.” It means that I spend four out of five days sleeping at least 18 hours a day. On the fifth day, I wake up at 6am, go about my day like a normal person, and then fall asleep again at 10pm like a robot.<br><br>It’s not ideal, but it has its advantages. I don’t need nearly as much sleep as your average human, and whenever I’m awake, I feel refreshed and alert. I’m also an extremely hard worker, because on the days I’m awake, I know I’m racing the clock. I have a great job, an awesome apartment, and as many friends as I can reasonably manage, given that I’m comatose most of the time.<br><br>So, all things considered, my KLS doesn’t really hinder me much.<br><br>It certainly didn’t hinder me on the day the aliens invaded.<br><br>I didn’t even know there was an invasion at all. I woke up on my day “off”, got out of bed, and shuffled into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea.<br><br>That’s when I saw it.<br><br>A piece of paper, taped to my front door. A hand-drawn poster, actually, probably made by one of the kids in my building.<br><br>I ripped it off and took a look. There was a crude drawing of a UFO blasting a skyscraper, and the words: “THEY’RE HERE!!!”<br><br>I chuckled and tossed the paper in the trash, figuring it was some kind of prank or a misremembered dream.<br><br>But the joke was on me, because they really were here.<br><br>I found out after my walk. Normally, I take a stroll through the park on my days off, to get some fresh air and enjoy nature. But today, as I strolled out into the parking lot, I saw something was amiss.<br><br>Namely, the massive spaceship floating above the city.<br><br>I’m not gonna lie, my jaw dropped. I’m not a stupid woman - I knew that if aliens visited in real life, it would be huge news, and that this was probably some kind of prank or a movie shoot.<br><br>But I had to know for sure. So I took out my phone and checked the news.<br><br>That’s when I realized that the UFO wasn’t the weirdest thing out there.<br><br>The world was on fire. Cities were being blasted to smithereens, governments were dissolving, and society was collapsing.<br><br>I read all this on my phone, standing in the parking lot and staring up at the UFO in confusion.<br><br>I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to go back inside and take a nap.<br><br>That’s what I do when I’m stressed, and the end of the world is pretty stressful.<br><br>I went back to my apartment, climbed into bed, and passed out like a stone.<br><br>When I woke up, the world was at peace. The aliens had gone, and I had slept through the Second Coming.<br><br>Or so it seemed.<br><br>Over the next few weeks, the news slowly came out. The aliens hadn’t been hostile at all - in fact, they had single-handedly cured all diseases, ended climate change, and brokered world peace. They had also given humanity access to infinite clean energy and advanced technology beyond our wildest dreams.<br><br>And I had slept through it all.<br><br>I was actually kind of mad about it, to be honest. Who wouldn’t want to see the moment when humanity was catapulted into a new era of peace and prosperity?<br><br>But when I went back to work, my boss had some news that changed my mind.<br><br>“Sleeping Beauty, you’re a genius,” she said.<br><br>It turned out that while I was asleep, our company’s mainframe computer - which I was theoretically in charge of - had been hacked. But not in the way you’d think.<br><br>It turned out that the aliens, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to help humanity out in any way they could. They had hacked into every single computer in the world, and used their advanced technology to increase efficiency, finds patterns that we had missed, and ultimately give humanity a leg up on our collective road to progress.<br><br>And nowhere was this more obvious than our computer.<br><br>We’re a medical research facility, and we had been on the verge of several breakthroughs - treatments for cancer, a cure for Alzheimer’s, a vaccine for a new infectious disease that had cropped up in the Middle East.<br><br>While I slept, the aliens had used our computer to finish all that research. They had created a cure for every disease known to man, and even figured out a way to reverse paralysis.<br><br>They had also created a blueprint for a machine that could create infinite clean water and food, practically for free.<br><br>So, in a way, I was kind of glad I had slept through the apocalypse. It may have sucked to miss the cool sights and sounds, but I had played a crucial role in saving humanity.<br><br>And who knows, maybe one day I’ll actually get to *see* an alien.<br><br>But if that day ever comes, you can bet I’ll be fast asleep.