CHICAGO — Local 42-year-old man Marshall Reese is descending into a nightmarish, unending spiral of increasingly comforting sleepytime teas, unable to prevent himself from sinking into a morass of melatonin and herbal compounds, according to sources.
“Marshall used to indulge in a mug of sleepytime tea every now and then,” said his longtime girlfriend Kelli Murillo while she glumly stared at a garbage can piled high with empty tea cartons. “Just like anyone else, he enjoyed occasionally sitting in a nightshirt in an overstuffed armchair by a roaring fire, but now he’s hitting the teabag hard. I can’t remember the last time he wasn’t riding an echinacea high or jonesing for his next cup of sinus soother wellness. It’s terrible to look into the eyes of someone you love and see nothing but chill, peaceful vibes.”
Jonathan Chelnez, an employee at Chicago’s TeaPourium, has been observing Reese’s fall into a state of chamomile-dependent madness for months.
“That guy comes in every single day reeking of last night’s tilia flowers and fiending for whatever new blends we have on the shelf,” said Chelnez. “Biotin beauty, lavender langour, fucking variety packs. If that guy wasn’t always so tranquil and serene because of the gallons of sleepytime that he had surging through his system like a hurricane of restfulness, he would have been a nightmare. To be honest, that degenerate was actually really easy to deal with. May God have mercy on his soul.”
Corrina Espinoza Abelar, an addiction counselor, says that many factors can result in someone like Reese falling into a perpetual cycle of sleepytime tea, uninterrupted REM cycles, and torment.
“So many people like Mr. Reese think that they can dance with the sleepy dragon and come out unharmed,” said Abelar. “But, in truth, it is not the sleepytime tea that is addicting. We all hold within us the innate human desire to be an anthropomorphized bear wearing a snood and falling asleep in a cozy cottage while soothing music plays from an old-fashioned radio. It is part of an inescapable, ineffable desire that has been within humanity since our earliest cave paintings of sleepy bears and the psilocybin mushroom broths that we brewed to try to take on their skins. In many ways, Mr. Reese is not falling into a nightmare– instead, he is waking into mankind’s oldest dream.”
As of press time, Reese had reportedly woken up from a nap to urinate for the third time.