Isn’t it a struggle?

This morning I could not get up. My mind had to literally drag my body from my bed like I was a corpse. As if the two were separate beings, one, wide awake Mind pulling and heaving the cold dead Michael’s body from the bed as if Mind was trying to hide it in a panic from the cops coming up the stairs.

“C’mon, c’mon, get up man. Get up”, begged Mind.

“Shnumun up miserrisrableable somnabetch”, groaned Michael’s corpse.

“You have to get going. You have to get to work”, pleaded Mind.

“Wornk iv for panseysmfrigber”, muttered Michael’s corpse.

“Fine. You’re on your own. I’m going and I’m not coming back”, threatened Mind.

“Goo”, said Michael’s pillow muffled head.

So Mind sits in the living room and waits for the usual corpse panic to set in, which it inevitably does. The corpse is electrified to life at some late hour, practically crapping itself with fear.

“Damn it! Why didn’t Mind try and wake me up”, thinks the re-animated corpse of Michael.

It’s always Mind’s fault. He’s just not determined enough to get Old Corpsey out of bed.

Mind will just stand there in the bathroom doorway, mouth open, shocked that he was once again thrown under the bus. But after so many years, probably 20 years, of the same old thing Mind has just given up arguing. It’s always the same.  Alarms go off and Mind tries to pull corpse Michael to the surface of his drowning dreams, only to fail at the last second and allows the lifeless body drift deeper into the dreamy blackness.

So the re-animated corpse of Michael rushes about the apartment, trying to get out the door in time to make his train so he won’t be as late as he has been in the past. Mind will eventually rejoin the body, usually about the time Michael reaches the train and will then let guilt and shame join the party.

By then Michael is already planning on getting up when he first hears those morning alarms, but Mind knows it’s all a lie and stays quiet because sometimes the truth doesn’t have to say anything at all.