08:00 AM, time to get up.
As you slowly come out of your warm and comfy covers and into the damp coldness of your room, you think to yourself:
‘It’s probably the flu again; it must be.’
But you know full well that what has nailed you down to your bed is the pure physical and psychological exhaustion that you have been feeling lately.
It’s just been building up; it’s grown from a speck of dust into a mountain the size of your own ambition and ego.
Making yourself a second cup of coffee, you look in the mirror and smile at the ludicrous state of your hair, wondering whether it will not, indeed, make a good nest for the local cuckoo bird.
The bags under your eyes do not worry you at all because they kind of suit your eyes; they make them stand out and cost less than your average make- up; at least in the short- run.
As you reach for the comb, your elbow joint locks up and an incredible rush of pain goes through your nerves and into your brain, reminding you of your age.
The smile slowly, yet steadily, turns into a horribly distorted frown; a process which, surprisingly enough, was not triggered by the sudden rush of pain. Rather, it was triggered by the imminent realisation that a person in his early twenties should not be feeling as though he was in his mid- fifties.
You ponder on the above for a fraction of a second and decide that you haven’t really got the time to think about it at present as you have other more important things to do.
On your way to work, you feel as though you don’t really know where you are going. The podcast that you are normally listening to on your way to work has started blending in with the song of the cuckoo bird which has, until very recently, nested in your hair.
You walk into the office, grab two cups of cappuccino, sit at your desk and stare at the screen for a while, expecting the PC to turn itself on, log you in and tell you what to do.
Suddenly, as your mind wanders around floors of the office, pretending to play hide-and-seek, you hear someone raising his voice at you:
‘Snap out of it, will you?’
At that point, you are reminded by a colleague that staring blankly at the screen does not normally contribute to your productivity in any way whatsoever rather than making you look even more alien than you normally do.
You can’t think of a comeback and that’s bad; you always had at least a couple of those ready in your back- pocket.
You close your eyes for a second, take a deep breath and do some work; all of it, in fact.
As you’ve had enough of your current state, both physically and mentally, you pop out of the office to see your GP over lunch.
As you walk into his office, you start whinging about how physically weak you feel and how it’s probably related to all of the things that you have been doing lately; you have been living quite a ‘busy and manic lifestyle’, you say.
GP looks at you; he then takes his ‘tools of the trade’ and checks you up.
‘Drink lots of fluids, take some painkillers, stay in bed for a day or two and rest up. You’ll live’
‘I suppose I need to rest up a bit more in general the, eh, doc? I think I’ve been overworking myself lately…’
‘No, you haven’t; you’re twenty four. You’ve just got the flu. And stop yammering like a little girl.’
Silence. And then hearty laughter.
Ah, yes. No rest for the wicked; that’s how it had always been and how it would always be.
‘Can’t argue with that.’ you say and buy yourself a 99p cheeseburger from MacDonald’s; now THAT was a good comeback.
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