Tucan Man

Hey Daddy-o, the kids were wondering if you were ever going to get out of bed?

The Good Lady's voice echoed weirdly in my head as if she were really with me and I wasn't hallucinating through my sweat-soaked covers.

Tell them to fuck off.

I grunted, not entirely convinced I was dealing with an actual earthly entity.

For I had been smitten. Cursed. Plagued even. By a lurgy so demonic that I had been holed up in bed for five days sweating like my name was Lord Sweaty McBaws of the clan McSweaty Baws.

There was no answer. The voice must truly have been an apparition.

I grimaced in the dank cavern I had made of our attic bedroom. It was here that I had holed myself up just in case I had had covid. This way I could keep my stinking filth to myself and not pass it on to my beloved family.

I had done little else besides sleep and try to stay hydrated enough that my pee wasn't a rusted jelly that slobbered reluctantly from my Elven Bratwurst.

The only contact I had as time passed was my morning phone calls to El-Jefe to tell him I would not be in. On this last day of the week, I swear he had been near tears with the tragedy of it all.

That tragedy was of course him having to do some actual fucking work instead of plopping it all on to me like we were scat partners and it was short-straw-Sunday.

There was a noise outside my bed. I ignored it, the way that men ignore noises because the only other option is to tromp about with a weapon in hand looking for the source of the noise with deadly intent.

I hadn't had the strength for manly tromping for days.

Right, get out of bed. You have had long enough. It's the bloody weekend.

The moist quilt that had become almost a second skin to me over the past few days was hauled off, leaving me blinking and twitching in the sun like a grub on some freshly dug soil.

What? What is going on? Who? Why? What?

I tried to pull the covers back over me but to no avail as the Good Lady held them in an iron grip. She tugged at them. Her mouth set in a grim line.

Get up. You were up late last night watching TV and eating crisps. You are obviously much fucking better if you can skulk about at night living the life and then crawl back to bed in the morning!

She flicked the quilt like a matador at a bull and I felt myself bellow in response.

But I am ill!!

I rubbed my hands feebly at my glue-stuck eyes.

You also forgot to tidy away the beer cans before you went to bed.

She smirked as she saw me flinch at her words.

I burped in indignation before realising she had a point. Fuck, I must be getting slack in my old age.

It was only two.

I mumbled in a half-hearted defence.

Two, pfft and the rest. Anyway. I am off to work. Get these bedclothes in the wash and get you to the shower. You actually stink.

She shook her head and walked off.

And open a bloody window, honestly, it's like an animal lair up here?!

I pulled myself upright and looked about me forlornly.