Toto, Too? by venitha

I crank the bedroom's air-con to 18, yet I toss and turn for hours, much too hot to sleep. It's hard not to view the baby within me as the fiery Heat Miser, flaming red hair inherited from grandma, charming personality inherited from me.

I throw the flimsy blanket off, then on, and contort my body in search of a non-existent cool spot. It's hard not to view this bed as the devil's maw, an evil embodiment of the last two years, for our purchase of it, roughly two years ago and shortly after I broke my knee, is a demarkation point, beyond which there was no denying that all hell had broken loose. I woke early this morning to a mere week of nights left to sleep in this bed and in this room. And how much longer, I wondered, shall "all hell" last?

I rolled onto my back and tried to calm my mind, to cool my body, with thoughts of the wintry weather we'll return to on January 31st and the blissful comfort of the waterbed I haven't slept in in what seems like forever. Ah, the glory of sliding smoothly under layer upon layer of heavy blanket, the pleasure of warming ice-cold feet against Jim's calves.

And, oh, that first morning to wake up in my own bed and in my own room, light softly filtered through filmy swaths of slate blue. I'll snuggle deep beneath the weight of the down comforter, only my nose peeking out for arctic fresh air. I'll spoon close behind Jim - or, given my current condition, he'll spoon close behind me - and I'll tell him, "I had the strangest dream. You were there... but, oh! There's no place like home!"

venitha