I am rolling in and out of sleep. I’m in the good spot. No dreams. Just the silent Self. But the hangover is stalking, creeping in waves, reaching body parts other alcoholic drinks cannot reach. As I lie there contemplating rehydration, I am tripping out on blurred memories of the night before.
So, there was a little family rave up – a pre-Xmas party, with dancing, an 80’s mash-up playlist, and a bottomless glass of rum n’ coke – in the Lockdown spirit of household fun. Now I am paying the price, compensating the bartender, settling the tab, on this car crash write-off of a Sunday morning.
After the dawn hours of heeding the relentless rumble of the carbon commute from the A27, and the caw-cawing of seagulls circling over the house, I haul my sorry arse up and slump in the brown leather throne in the lounge downstairs.
Contemplating the poison in the system from a night splayed on the kitchen tiles, gripped with a feverish anxiety, thick head, and smidgen of shame, I tune into the white noise of the television in the background.
I am glued to the screen. It’s chewing gum for my tired puffy eyes. I am drawn into the drama of the advertising break, wondering why they call it a break – this endless purgatory of purchasing power – which even Dante, his Inferno, and his nine circles of Hell couldn’t have fathomed.
I tune in with a sneery disposition, rugged headache, and mouth like Gandhi’s flip-flop: watching Ray Winstone flogging football betting highs with a gruff alpha twang, and T’s & C’s disclaimer to ‘gamble responsibly’; contemplate Christmas lifestyle nirvana with a landfall seasonal scoop on the loony lottery; and master how to smell like a sex god with porn perfumery bought in an ice-blue, bodybuilder-sculpted, glass bottle.
Flicking through the channels, I settle on a programme featuring industrious manger-building priests, who all look like lay paedo’s. I turn off the white noise of the television, open the blinds and inspect the scene beyond the window. I am humming Elbow’s ‘One Day Like This’, quietly thinking it ‘aint this day.
Shaking from the excesses of alcohol and powerful psych drugs, I attempt to summon up the will and energy to have a crack at ‘One Day Like This’. I watch the two resident magpies peck for worms in the grizzly misty rain, wondering how much of our subconscious thoughts are white noise, and how to separate the mindful wheat from the dross of the chaff.
After an age, of digging deep in the tank reserves, I rouse the inclination to tune in, turn on and plug into the great artificial intelligence brain in the sky – otherwise known as the World Wide Web, or Internet.
And it’s another hit of white noise from the socials. I manage ten minutes of scrolling the screen, dispensing heart shaped tweets, and clicking blue thumbs up, before going in search of a game changing caffeinated brew to stimulate my world-weary synapses.
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