Day 64

I wake up early to record the links between the various submissions to Queer Out Here. We tried the day before with my co-editor Jonathan but it was just too hot. In the early morning light, it is much easier. Our computers do no whirr madly in a vain attempt to remain cool. Instead, the only noises are that of neighbours departing for work, and birds singing their morning songs.

Jonathan has to go before all links are recorded, but we have it all done for half of issue 05 so I can start working on the edit. I close the computer lid for now and return to bed for a second cup of tea. I cuddle up to my partner and close my eyes for a moment. I can sense a headache rising on the side of my face. Two bad night sleeps and I’m paying for it. The pain settles behind my right eye, descend into my jaw and stays there.

All day, I walk around the house groggy. I fall asleep on the sofa after lunch but this has not cleared my headache. Under the cover of rest, it has grown in intensity, making the right side of my face throbbing. I swallow some paracetamol and return to bed in a vain attempt for sleep.

Evening comes. The pain is dulled by the paracetamol. My partner teaches me to make fish cake to the sound of BBC Radio 3. We eat while watching TV. Our food eaten, the dishes done, and the kitchen cleaned we retreat to bed. I have no strength to read so I watch YouTube videos about pinhole photography for a while. The images blurring, I turn my phone off and rest it on the bedside table without setting an alarm. I need the sleep.

My partner closes her book and switches off her light. We breath in and out, listening to the air travelling in and out of us, letting our thoughts slide and disappear. Instinctively, I am follow the long ago exercises a Ju-Jitsu teacher gave me as a kid. I sink at the bottom of the ocean, my limbs heavy. There are fish there floating above my body. Bright colours of a health coral reef I have never been too. The world is warm and I am asleep.