Monday, September 29, 2008

different

I woke to bird song and the misty remnants of dissipated dreams. No doubt the sun in my eyes did its best, but that's why I wear sunglasses. It's easier than moving the bed. A cool breeze wafted through the open window as was its habit, and I breathed in deeply, blinked my eyes, felt rather groggy, and pondered the fleeting memories of last night - jazz even smokier than the air, a sea of trench coats and fedoras, a barman named Joe, and some sweet thing whispering sweet nothings into my ear. Someone else's memories, that was for sure. Briefly I wondered where mine had got to, and if this was anything like waking up in someone else's clothes, but it was too early for extensive mental action.

Really, it was too early even for getting up, what with the heaviness of my lids, I mean, and the temperature differential between in bed and out of it. I yawned and retested the latter with my arm, with the same results. Scientific method, check. I snuggled down in my little cave, closed my eyes once again, and of course this is when the fiddle music had to start on the street below. I think there must be a sign on the casement outside my room that tells those self-styled 'players' when they can achieve maximum damage. Still, this is old hat. I chucked a handy brick out the window, and after an inexplicable but brief increase in the noise, blissful silence returned. Thank goodness, because I'm running low on bricks. Well, I mean, I tell a friend of mine on a regular basis that she's a brick, but I don't plan on throwing her out the window.

Anyway, the air was still fresh, and the birds that had been scared off by the fiddlers returned and began singing once more, and I was warm and comfortable as I sank back into the pillow with a sigh and closed my eyes and began to mediate on serenity and its role in promoting man's artistic and scientific achievements. Everything was right, there was not a care in the world, sleep was impending, the fiddlers were unconscious, and with such a setup how could it possibly last?

It did last, for all of forty-five seconds, and then my alarm clock went off. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, this was a serious matter. It used to be you could just slam the snooze button and then toss the clock out the window without even emerging from the depths. If you lacked a brick, but were sufficiently disciplined to hold out for a bit, you could take care of two bothers with one throw. Not any more, though. Oh, no. Unless this was all just another woozy dream brought on by insufficient quantities of the fruit of the abyss and possibly the vine, but in any case when the clock changed I was conscious of my plane of repose shifting as my beloved bed went vertical and dumped me on the floor.

Well, that was OK. I'd slept often enough on floors not to resent the idea now. But the accursed bed had other plans, and as I tried to settle down and catch those Zs that kept eluding my grasp, the bed extended a foot and booted me in the behind. Well, that got me pretty riled, especially as it was actually wearing a boot, heaven knows where it had found it. I was no slouch at the fisticuffs and was certainly not about to take any lip from anybody, especially a body that has no lip. I leaped to my feet and put up my fists, it produced some fists from somewhere (boxing glove-attired, no less) and another foot and put them up, except not the foot of course, and we began circling one another warily.

"C'mon, ya pug!" I said. "I'll pop you one right in the pate, pally. I'll pummel you in the pillow! I'll paint you purple, you pontificating pugnacious poseur! You ready for some pugilism, punk?" Well, I was pretty pleased with that bit of patois, and wasn't paying attention, and the bed purloined a passing moment to punch me a powerhouse. I went down, and the bed pulled a piledriver and pinned me to the plywood.

It must be Monday.

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