Slow Sunday

 

I AM HELD TOGETHER WITH STICKY TAPE AND STRING

Or so it seems to me.

Have you ever had one of those nights? You're so tired that it almost feels like it will be hard work both getting to sleep and staying awake. You put the light out early (which, for me nowadays, means any time before midnight...) and soon consciousness evaporates. Until the bladder determines otherwise.

So it says 5 something on the clock and I shufflestumble to the loo and back again and close the eyes that never really opened and... Nothing. Or rather something, which is worse than nothing. Something and nothing, anything but where you want to go. Treacherous mind, betraying the desire for more of the oblivion you are looking for. It rambles and roams and won't settle to a purpose.

I pick up my phone. Knowing this is rarely a sound tactic. But a game of sudoku may give that focus, may lead on to the nothing I want. My screen is set to grayscale at night for this purpose, in the hope of minimising the intrusive light. I play the game, I reach an end. The mind feels quieted. Yet still I lie there. Still no void. A squint at thee clock shows 6 something.

And then it doesn't. Sleep returns, but fools me. When I look at the clock the 6 has stood on it's head. 9? It can't be a 9. It is a nine. 6 to 9. 69. My mind leads me there but can't raise the merest hint of a smirk. Even my puerility is dormant. The brain is awake and not awake. The body has no urge to cooperate. The will towards full awakening has found itself mired in glutinous resistance.

And when I do finally find the will to push back the duvet, heave the legs over the edge, bring some semblance of uprightness to my being, it is with the greatest reluctance, with a heavy force of resistancee to overcome. And nothing feels right. I am a makeshift man.

It was one of those nights. It is going to be one of those days. Do not disturb.