Last night I fell out of bed. Well, perhaps the word ‘fell’ is misleading.
This was not the gentle tumbling to the ground of someone who has turned over one too many times and finds themselves rolling onto the bedroom carpet wrapped in a duvet and desperately clinging to a pillow in the hope it will prevent their fall. Nor was it the awkward crash of someone trying to avoid disturbing a sleeping partner/child/pet and managing only to overbalance to avoid waking the one who is hogging 90% of the bed. Nor was it the controlled landing of someone who, having been pursued across the surface of the mattress by a renegade dreamer, has surrendered to the inevitable and decided to sneak round to the other side of the bed to try again.
There was, I confess, something of the drama of the sleeper who has forgotten that they have taken up temporary residence on the top bunk and shifted their position only to remember, too late, that the lenient safety of the king-size divan has been replaced by the harsh reality of a narrow mattress and a six foot drop to the floor. And also I found shades of the drama of the night when I reached out of the aforementioned top bunk and stuck my fingers in the shaver socket, somersaulting me out of bed and yet again to the cold, hard floor, somewhat cushioned by my sleeping bag.
So..last night I rolled sleepily yet contentedly over to recapture the duvet which I had tossed away in the earlier part of my slumber. Realising with sudden alarm in my befuddled state that this manoeuvre would place me perilously close to the edge of the bed, and seeking to avoid that inevitable dreamlike descent to the bedroom rug, I hurled myself back in the opposite direction. Only then did I realise that I had seriously miscalculated my position on the mattress, and that I had in fact launched myself dramatically off the other side of the bed, bouncing me off the bedroom wall and into thin air.
Since the laws of physics are harsh and unyielding, gravity took over the rest of the operation and dropped me unceremoniously – yet firmly – to the floor, pausing only to bang my head on the bedside cabinet as it passed by.
Sleeping can be a dangerous pastime.
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