A long experiment that felt much longer. Quite a few years ago, when I was working mostly nights, I arranged to have a few nights off, so I could experiment with an idea I had. That idea was the Host. It did not quite work out as I imagined though. I was intending to get drunk for three days, and write about the aftermath. What actually happened was that I didn't get drunk, but I did decided to stay up for one night and just write about sleep deprivation and its effect on the mind. This became the Host. What you are reading is edited only so far as doing a spell check. I have not corrected any grammar mistakes, wrong words, or intentional misspellings. I wanted to gain a real insight into what it would be like to force myself to keep writing for the whole night. I began with the task of writing 20,000 words. These are those 20,000 words, in all their ugly glory.