Author S. K. Nicholas

When I awoke in the morning, I was immediately sick in a plastic bag. The texture was blocky and reminded me of being a child puking up in the school library. Stumbling downstairs, I opened the front door and tossed the bag in the bin. It doesn’t get emptied for another week, either, but it’s not my fault. Collapsing back into bed, I couldn’t get comfortable, so I took the duvet and pillows off and camped on the floor where I’ve remained the entire day. Despite it being bare floorboards, it’s not too uncomfortable, although I’m worried a spider might scuttle across my face while I nap. I’ve slept most of the time, and in the brief moments when I’ve been awake, I’ve puked twice more. I wish someone would get me a bottle of orange Lucozade because I’m too ill to venture into the outside world. Instead, I’ve had to make do with a can of Pepsi and some liver salts. At some point in the afternoon, I’m pretty sure I could hear someone talking to me from the other side of the bed. Reaching out and touching its frame, it was cold, and the voice was that of a woman. She was whispering, and although I couldn’t make out what she was saying, her words comforted me. Listening to the old XFM shows featuring Rickey Gervais, I lay looking up at the ceiling not thinking or feeling, just being numb. Later on, the image of an ex-lover comes into my head. I’m in no mood for wickedness, but for some hours, I explore the landscape of her body until she bleeds into my dreams. Crawling through the wreckage of yesterday, we are in love once more, and as the skies fill with snow, she takes me back to a place where I belong.