Bed head

One of the pleasures of the day is going to bed at night. I look forward to it almost from the moment I get up, pushing away the sheets and pulling myself reluctantly out of my nest of warm and comforting pillows. As I walk groggily around my room switching off the air-conditioner and opening windows, the bed I have just left sends out a clarion call that almost seduces me back into it, asking that I crawl back in and snuggle into sleep once more…

But needs must and I have everything and everyone from the half-asleep milkman to my wonderfully irascible boss waiting for me to rush madly about catering to their whims, fancies and urgent text messages. I bustle hither and yon, with various purposes in mind, staunchly ignoring that soft cotton tangle that is my bed, inviting me back into its folds. Making it helps me resist, but before I can get to doing that, a game must be played with Small Cat, who will lurk under the sheets and demand that I scratch her tummy, whereupon she will wrap her paws around my arm and bite whatever part of my hand she can get to. And the more I yell, “She’s biting me, she’s biting me!”, the happier the little beastie is, growling and wiggling, stalking and pouncing, all from under that stretch of well-washed fabric.

But eventually the clock tells me to get back to routine, Small Cat’s claws make bloody dents in my skin and Father reminds me that the power could be switched off before my clothes are ironed. So I turf the little feline out on to her perch just outside my windows, shake out my pillows and smooth the considerably ruffled bedsheets and cover all temptation with a brilliant spread that serves only to temporarily camouflage the place I would rather spend the day, not erase it from my memory.

The day goes slowly by, leaking slowly through the sand from the commute in to work to the commute away from work. As I watch the traffic and pedestrians that we speed past through the car window, wincing at every pothole and roadbump that the driver unfailingly manages to collide with, my thoughts wander idly in the direction of my bed. I think of the moment when, after a cool shower, I slide my legs into the envelope of my colourful cotton sheets, lie back against the pillows and slowly, as the cold air from the air-conditioner wafts through the room, feel each muscle slither gently into a loose, relaxed softness. A friend will phone and I reach out for the receiver, tucking it against the pillow as I chat in fading tones and drift ever so smoothly into that never-never land that lies somewhere between waking and sleeping.

And then, suddenly, I will be jolted awake by the songs of Small Cat demanding a cuddle, her morning ration of wheatgrass and her favourite game of chase-the-feather-on-the-string-that-my-humans-hold. Father will be clattering dishes in the kitchen next door to my bedroom and the birds will be going crazy with their dawn warbles in the trees outside. Try as I will, I cannot fade back into oblivion, but gradually unwind myself from the nest of my bed, emerging in parts, as it were, into the new day. And with each stretch, that bed lures me back in. Some day, its siren call will be louder than the sounds that pull me out of it…