The validity of a physical retching sensation in response to life and all things it entails.
There are days, many more these days than acceptable, when I lay awake in bed overhearing the tiresome morning sounds of a geriatric household.
The deaf one is shouting at the lost one; he simply stares back, a stoic sculpture of incomprehension.
The authoritarian know-it-all is being himself, snubbing even the lizard under the dining table with derision.
It’s dark. Lovely cool darkness.
It’s early. Too early for me.
Snow Crash.
I am awake, my late-night long forgotten, sleep has slouched away not once complaining of insufficient attention. I want her back. Back in my blanket. As I try to shove my face down into my pillow within the darkness of my blanket, I want her to kiss my eyes back to peaceful oblivion. But she won’t hear of it. She is gone, long gone. I will myself to switch off instead.
Drifting.
In and out.
A throbbing thought loops around my mindspace like a news ticker—I wish I were dead—it’s on repeat. Along with its monotonous drone, unawares to my senses, there is a rising discomfort; now in my throat. I wake up to the realisation that on early mornings like this one, life makes me want to puke.
I don’t mean puke metaphorically or metaphysically. I don’t mean it in a shouting-from-atop-my-literary-high-horse sort of way. I mean the physical response of throwing up when met with highly disagreeable content.
That can’t be normal. Or maybe I just like slow, peaceful mornings. And I don’t remember the last one.