And now we like to interrupt our program for an exceptional announcement by our great leader.

My dear citizens.

Since the dawn of mankind, human life has moved in cycles. Each morning we rise full of energy. By the afternoon we slow down, and then night arrives, bringing darkness with it, putting us to sleep.

It has always reminded me of a traffic jam. The moment you find your momentum, you already have to slow down. Then while sitting still, waiting, you think. You drift. You dream.

I have loved my dreams dearly. A world with mythical creatures. Adventures through a world where the laws of physics don’t apply. I have walked through doors into worlds where prosperity was not rationed and where every stranger was treated as kin. But standing still has a cost. The world does not wait for the dreamer. The stillness that restores us is the same stillness that slows all of us down.

Today, a heavy choice has been placed upon me. Heavier than any burden I have carried before.

Our scientists have made a breakthrough that rivals the splitting of the atom. Not in its capacity of destruction. But in its capacity to remake the world as we know it. What they have achieved will be in every government briefing by morning. Within a week, every nation on this earth will have mobilized to replicate it. We did not ask to be first. We simply are.

The compound has been designated SX-2. It eliminates the biological need for sleep. Entirely. Without side effects, without degradation, without limit. You may take it today and still be taking it in thirty years. You will simply… never need to stop.

I would like to be honest with you, because what I say next is not the language of a man who is certain. I have not slept well in the weeks since this discovery landed on my desk. There is something in me that resists this. The night has always been ours. The small, private world of a warm bed and a soft pillow.

I would have preferred to leave that world untouched.

History has not given me that luxury. Because the choice before us is not between sleeping and waking. The choice is between a nation that adapts and a nation that is left behind. There will be those who take SX-2 and those who do not. I would not allow this line of division within the heart of our nation. Not while I can prevent it.

And so I am announcing, effective immediately, that SX-2 will be made available to every citizen, free of charge, through our national distribution network. No one will be compelled. But I will not pretend that the world beyond our borders will wait for those who choose not to.

We did not choose this moment. But we will not flinch from it.

Now it is time to part, I wish you a good nights sleep.

Tomorrow, we wake up in a new era. One without sleep.