‘It’s still early days…’

I wake up with Harry the cat walking over my face. Fuck, is my first thought. It’s Saturday.

Saturdays have become the most difficult day since you’ve gone. Saturdays mean at least forty hours must pass before I can go to work and have something to distract my mind from this impenetrable sadness. I count the days in my head. Thirteen weeks. You died thirteen weeks ago today.

I push Harry off the bed and turn onto my side. I pull the duvet around my neck and scrunch up my eyes, trying to block out the daylight seeping in from the window. If I can just go back to sleep, even for a little while, at least I won’t have to face being alone with my thoughts. I try hard to think of nice things and to drift off back to sleep.

Of course, it is to no avail. Apart from the fact that my toes are poking out from the bottom of the bed and are in danger of being shred to ribbons by a predatory Harry: I need a piss.

With a heavy sigh I sit up. Carefully, keeping the duvet around my neck to ward off the impending chill, I hunt around the bed for the remote control and turn on the TV. I’m amazed at how reliant I have become on this screen. It’s on more often than off now – the inane chatter of random talk shows preferable to the otherwise morbid silence.

When Harry’s cute (but really fucking annoying) meowing finally becomes too much to bear, I haul myself out of bed. Pulling on yesterdays t-shirt and joggers from the floor I walk through to the kitchen. Harry weaves in and out of my legs causing a near catastrophe more than once. I look in his dish – little bastard still has half a meal left from last night. There was no need for him to wake me up at all.

He’s a poor wee thing though. He’s been finding it hard too, since you died. He doesn’t like being alone much either. I top up his food and water bowl and he tucks in appreciatively. I give him a pat and head to the bathroom.

As I move my hands in and out of the tap water I examine my face in the mirror. Just look at the fucking state of me. At thirty eight I’m not exactly in the prime of my life, but still, really?! This is what I look like now? Jesus.

My hair is greying, my face is blotchy and bloated and my eyes are like piss holes in the snow. Thankfully my clothes hide the worst of the scarred, stretch marked, cellulite ridden body I know fine well I live in. To have to look at that this morning would really push me over the edge.

I go back to the bedroom and jump back into bed. As I get comfortable Harry comes to join me, settling on top of the duvet for cuddles. At least I have him I think. It’s better than no one, and I’ll take all the friends I can get right now. I need them since you died.

I reach for my other friend – a cigarette – and I am momentarily soothed as the nicotine rushes through my blood stream.

I consider getting up, getting dressed and going in to town to buy some shit I neither want or can afford. It’s how I’ve tried to fill the gap, since you died.

I remember it hasn’t worked the last two Saturday’s, so there’s no point trying again today. I set the TV to put itself to sleep in half an hour and settle back down again. I pull the duvet around my neck and close my eyes – Harry still purring away beside me.

The days news is burbling away in the background. Some cold and unfeeling male voice is revealing that, apparently, five people in China have died from a mystery illness. Definitely best not to go out today then. I drift off into a restless sleep.

I wake up with Harry the cat walking over my face. Fuck, is my first thought. It’s still Saturday…

(Originally Posted 03.03.2019)