Today, I was struck by how much akin in my head my bed is to the depths of the ocean. Yes, yes, or a womb. But I can't remember what being in utero was like (though doubtless there are folks out there who could make me relive the experience). I can, however, remember the feeling of plunging into deep water.
Here followeth a passage from the novel I never finished (mostly because it was Overwrought and Crap):
"Hungry to pierce the green, Sasha took a deep breath. Bent sharply at the waist and slipped easily below. Disappeared. She loved the weightlessness when the up-thrust kept her temporarily suspended, like a lost jewel. There were shafts of light coming from below. From deep below. Radiating upward from an unknown source. Strange that they should come from the depths and not the surface. But then, the surface was easily forgotten.
"She looked at her legs dividing the water beneath her body, slowly. The blue bed could not be seen; therefore, she was suspended. Floating above below. Free. Slowly, she released her store of air, sealing it in a chain of silver bubbles. Spinning away from her. Up. She began to sink and closed her eyes.
"This summer she could hold her breath longer than ever before. She could stay longer."
In this case the hero's female, but you catch my general drift.
Beds cancel you out and liberate you. Especially if the bedroom's dark and the bed comes with a duvet. You can just hop in and let the edge of that feather-filled creature swallow you up. If it's winter and freezing, you can even let the thing close over your head completely.
Breathing gets to be a bit difficult, but who cares? At least your face isn't cold, your eyeballs no longer getting icier and icier behind your closed lids. Quite the contrary, your breathing in your descended state is making everything a little steamy and blissfully warm.
Here there are no obligations or lack thereof. Nothing and noone to tell you you're failing (except your mind - which, unfortunately, is its very own diving bell, but if you're tired enough, you can shut that out, too). And if there are terrors that could bring death, well, I'm even sort of ready for them as well. Earthquake? No problem, the roof will simply cave in on me and kill me. Tsunami from ice cap melting? I'm probably too high up for it to be a problem initially - and I can starve to death quite comfortably in this foetal position. Volcano or fire? I'd probably die quite quickly of asphyxiation just being under the duvet - or I could wrap myself up in my beautiful duvet and simply jump out the window from six floors up (seven if you're calculating in American).
Bed is where I feel I'm safe and protected. Except that, my stroke-ridden grandmother is in her bed 95 percent of the time, and I'm not in her position. And unlike her, my brain isn't damaged enough to absolve me of getting up eventually and taking up responsibility for something.
Dunno if there are beds in the Afterlife. But maybe if you've stayed in them for too long on this earthly level, you don't get any rest wherever you end up next. Hence, no rest for the wicked. And man, that'd suck. I'm banking on heavenly rest after the Boot Camp nightmare that is my mind on the bad days.
So, um, yeah. Beds are nice. Being in them is even nicer.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
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2 comments:
See, my biggest problem has always been the whole "it gets hard to breathe" issue, and I've devoted countless hours to trying to figure out a solution. Screw curing disease, global warming and trying to guess who'll win X-Factor, for my money, this is one of the biggest conundrums facing mankind, and worthy of much research. Many's the time I've been huddled under the covers thinking dark, dark thoughts about the universe only to have my sulking rudely interrupted by the growing realisation that I can't actually breathe. The latin name for this phenomenon is, I believe, Sulkus Interruptus, and it greatly affects the quality and quantity of one's sulking. Thus far, I have attempted to circumvent the problem by leaving a tiny chink of space between one part of the duvet's edge and the bed, but this also lets in light, and occasionally, a draught, which seems counter to the very essence of the "warm, dark" component of the experience. Another alternative is, of course, lengthy straws placed in the nostrils, leading out under the duvet, but this is uncomfortable, often leads to chafing of the nostrils, and somewhat hampers movement, as the straws tend to fall out whenever one attampts to burrow deeped into the bedclothes. I am now thinking in terms of some sort of lightweight aqualung, and am considering the setting-up of a non-profit organisation to continue my research. Anyone wishing to contribute to this effort, which I hope will, one fine day, liberate the depressive sulkers of the world from concerns about asphyxiation, and free them to sulk (dis)contentedly for days - nay weeks - on end, can send funds directly to my PayPal account at [excised]. You have my absolute guarantee that any monies recieved will go directly to support this most humanitarian of research programs and will absolutely, totally not, not, NOT be used in any way to buy more stuff on eBay.
Truly, learning to live without breathing is far simpler - though I grant you, not as great a spur to plumbing the vast depths of human innovation that your proposed research would, no doubt, prompt.
Then there's the fashion aspect. A nocturnal land aqualung? I dunno...
Ultimately, you have to ask yourself: what would Gaultier do? And does it go with the duvet? Duvets and aqualungs that aren't aesthetically coordinated are, how to put it... criminal. Just one big fat cosmic no-no.
The straws up nostrils idea, on the other hand, has definite merit. A je ne sais qois...
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