Fingered as a bad bed partner

Of late I’ve become an insomniac. And it’s the fault of a country suffering from political instability. And murder and violent protests are all one sees and hears about.

To crown it all, tyrants and state thieves are considered heroes. And many of them still enjoy jobs in government and semi-state institutions. Crooks Incorporated.

These are the scenes captured by the brain, playing over and over again at night instead of a restful sleep. Intermittently are visions of the sad state of the world at large. Mug shots of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump appear like pop-ups on the internet, adding fuel to the insomniac. Religious fanatics with Halloween faces also show up.

This condition has not gone unnoticed. My Heidi comes home from gym with a solution to the problem. An Active Virgin instructor says there’s a sure cure to insomnia. I’m all ears.

Lay back, relax, and stick your forefinger up your left nostril, leaving the right one to take in oxygen to the brain. See, she explains, our left side of the brain is the creative one – and that’s the culprit. Evidently because of its yearning to create, it’s more active than the right side – so by blocking it, you’re stifling creative activity and you’re able to go off into a dead sleep.

Keen to rid my mind of those dreadful apparitions, I try it out. Forefinger up the left nostril, breathe through the right one.

Problem, the right aperture is still clogged with snarlies left over after a recent sinus cold. So no oxygen gets through. I feel I’m suffocating, and picture myself in a sealed coffin being buried alive; a scene in a horror movie I’d seen at the local bughouse as a kid.

In a panic I extricate finger from nostril, jump out of bed, taking the bedding with me. Heidi and the pups (who sleep at the side of the bed) are woken with a start, not knowing what’s potting. Until the lights go on, that is. I’m standing with a bleeding nose. When yanking out the finger, the nail sliced through the sensitive middle part.

Funny thing, after getting back to bed, I immediately fall into a deep sleep. But as for my bed partners, they can’t go back to sleep. And I doubt whether they’ll try the finger job.

Cliff Buchler.

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