Every once in a while, winter brings you days when you wake up with a runny nose and malaise for no reason but that it is winter. You have eaten right, you have hydrated and exercised, but the day begins as it does, and then you go out to brunch but leave early because you have run out of tissues and patience. The hot toddies didn’t do any good, and the sun was not in the correct position, to begin with. All in all, from the moment you get in a cab to return home, it becomes a day of rest thrust upon you. But anything imposed and stipulated feels paralysing, even rest, especially rest. The afternoon nap is blissful only because you steal it from the world. When it is a day when the world does not demand much from you and no obligation prevents you from it, and if it is a day when you must nap for you need it, the nap feels underwhelming and pointless. We call it taking a nap because if it is given to us, it fails to have its true effect and feels different. But that is how things stand today. I sit here writing, a cup of chamomile with honey on the table and the doors and windows sealed shut. The chicken soup I ordered has just arrived, and now, it has begun to feel like November.
I slept through the hours when we still had light, and when I woke up, it was dark, and the curtains were still open, but the sun that caressed me as I slept seemed to have long gone. It is already the tail-end of the day, and the conniving rebelliousness in me is still cooking up some scheme on how to spend it. But first, I must have the soup, and then, we shall think of our mutiny against time and the natural order of things.