Friday, April 12, 2013

            This afternoon, after a morning of reading Marc Cameron’s second thriller and bulldozing the snow berm off the edge of my road, I couldn’t keep my eyes open.  I lay down on the floor in the sun and was immediately unconscious.  Or maybe subconsciously conscious but consciously unconscious.  I say this because in the semi-dream state I was in, I was aware I was asleep and of where I was sleeping.   I remember thinking how rested I felt and rolling over to congratulate myself on unselfconsciously whiling away the afternoon.  I was fully clothed with long underwear and a heavy fleece shirt, but even laying in the direct sunlight, I wasn’t unusually warm.  I recall turning over again and prodding myself to get up and do something productive, but I comfortably let that fleeting thought expire and continued to almost dream.  Finally, I awoke and knowing that my entire day had been wasted, I asked my wife how long I had been asleep.  “Oh, maybe an hour”, she replied.   I was flabbergasted.  My subconscious mind had been keeping track, I thought, and it had to have been at least 2 or maybe even 3 hours.  The clock in the kitchen was obviously wrong, because I felt way too refreshed for it having been only an hour’s time.  Suddenly, I was burning up.  All that clothing in the direct sun gave me the feeling of sitting in a potter’s kiln.  As I tore off my shirt and the long underwear, I pondered that maybe I should do more sleeping in the middle of the day.  So much more efficient than wasting an entire night.  Now try and read all those conscious words out loud and see if conscience or conscientious try to squeeze their way onto your tongue.  They do onto mine.