I'm Staying in Bed

I’m Staying In Bed ©

By Michael Casey

I can write from experience these past few days, what with all my aches and pains and so on. I wish I didn’t have the experience, but as a writer, you write about what you know, and you make up the rest. When was the last time you, yes you picking your nose and scratching your unmentionables, can you stop it, I’m trying to talk about staying in bed.

If you are sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin, Johnnie at the back stop doing that, Mary stop encouraging him, how can you listen to me if you are doing that. They are playing hard core chess, those Russian readers of mine, are so dedicated. They are in bed playing chess, it’s far too cold to go outside, its Russia in Winter after all.

I could have done with one of those Russian hats to keep me warm, maybe if my chess was way way better I could win a Russian winter hat, though I wouldn’t want to be in bed playing chess, I am from Birmingham after all, though Russian girls are said to be very pretty, I’ll leave it to your imagination…

Now I am staying in bed because it’s so cold and I’m full of pain, I haven’t got the energy to do anything today. I’ll put my radio on and listen to Magic radio while I hide under the duvet, I’ll just sing along to all the songs and frighten the neighbours next door. I am of course an excellent singer, in my own imagination anyway, I am told I am tone deaf, and I sing so loudly I make everybody else deaf. But under the duvet I am just so happy despite  the lingering pain.

The problem with staying in bed is that you have to go and have a leak in the bathroom, and the cold air slaps you, especially if you sleep in the nude as I’ve done for 30 years. Ok don’t scream, as one, my audience all over the world has screamed. Then when you get back to bed you snuggle up to where the warm spot was. Then after an unknow period of time Magic radio plays the one song that you detest so you have to get up.

Getting up just has to happen as I need to take my medicine religiously, or my heart would be all tick and no tock, revving like Hamilton in his car. So I have to put a dressing gown on as I head for the kitchen. It’s a ritual, dissolve the aspirin first while the bread is toasting then the kettle is boiling. Aspirin is taken then it’s followed by the first toast, then the rest of the meds, then the 2^nd toast, and finally my 1^st coffee of the day.

I did give  up coffee after 50 years, but after 2 years I decided that Quality of Life is Always More Important. So I returned to instant coffee, though less mugs.  

Breakfast done, I think the house cold, I’ll go back upstairs and hide under the duvet, I have my music on an old phone my daughter abandoned, so I can listen to that. But now I’m more awake than before so I cannot settle, the music is too aloud. So I switch off the music and fall asleep, a deep sleep which is only ended when the neighbour’s builder starts demolishing something, it sounds like incoming artillery.

You cannot decide whether to get up or not, you want to stay in bed and you don’t want to stay in bed, it’s a puzzle you cannot solve, you are a living Rubic’s cube, all different combinations and colours and moods as you move about in bed. If you were in bed with that Russian girl playing chess, now that would be different…