It's high noon in March, and everything in my room is simmering in the steady heat. I am in bed, lying on my side, nursing an ache that has taken residence in my head for about a week now. I suspected it was my wisdom tooth, and the first few days of its existence raised hell on the left hemisphere of my brain. Now, after constantly popping painkillers, it has been reduced to a muffled droning, like a distant parade or a machine left running at the back of the house. On a day like this -- hot, humid, and quiet -- the imaginary thrum feels eerily comforting.
I close my eyes, willing sleep to come. I have been awake since the previous evening, alternating my waking hours with a book and an online game -- as has been my habit since joining the ranks of the unemployed five months ago. My attempt was a little halfhearted than usual, however, and my eyes opened once again. I stretch and turn and face the other way and decide that sleep will not come today. The prospect of waking up does not feel particularly appealing, so the chore of resting my body will have to be postponed. Involuntarily, I grope for my mobile phone to check the time. 12:02pm. Two minutes. I press the Menu button repeatedly just to hear the beeping, and I swallowed the urge to hurl the thing against the wall. The internal effort made me conscious of the stillness of my body.
I allow myself a sigh before rolling over on my back, spreading my arms and legs across the length of the bed. My flesh is a geyser mine, steam rising ominously to the ceiling. I feel half-baked, half-cooked; a clay doll left unfinished by an absent-minded doll maker. There is an inchoate mass of potential in my gut -- the kind that commands armies and dominates worlds -- left stale, writhing and pulsing and decaying in a crumbling earthen oven. The thought made me want to throw up, but again, my body remains still.
Three, five, seven breathing cycles and I push my body to a sitting position. I cross my legs and press the balls of my palms to my temples. Water, I thought. I'm taking a bath and I'm going out to walk. I will be putting on normal clothes and walk the normal roads normal people take for a few hours. No one has to see the half-baked, half-cooked, half-finished spirit withering inside me. For a few hours, I become just like everyone else.
Out in the streets, I hear the tinkling of the bells of the ice cream man, with little children at his orbit. At the back of the house, a rooster was crowing, "You have been judged! You have been discarded!" In another neck of the world, it was someone's birthday. I grit my teeth at the conjuration of energy required to stand up, yet, once again, my body remains still.
