Ugh.
It was unusually dark in my bedroom. Cold too.
I rolled out of bed rubbing at my hands for a while and grumbling softly to myself. Even my bed seemed hard and cold this morning.
Is this what getting old is like?
I asked the darkness that lay heavy around me.
It didn't answer, thankfully.
Truly getting older was a bit shit. Everything hurt in the morning and even getting out of bed was a challenge. I mean, take today. I was sure I had only had a couple of beers last night and yet here I was shivering in the dark wondering why life had taken such a turn.
Baws to that.
I muttered, standing up with an audible creak.
Dammit, even my feet were bloody sore this morning. Fucking McFuckBuckets.
Oh well, I had better get up and about or the Good Lady would end up coming at me with a rolling pin. Or worse.
I shuddered when I thought of that time she had covered me in beef paste and pretended to be a hungry pack of dogs.
Or was that a dream? Fuck, getting old, you just don't know what's real anymore.
I stumbled over to the bedroom door and yanked at it to get it open. It seemed stiffer than usual and I let out a great earth-shaking fart as I heaved and wrestled with it.
Suddenly it rolled back and I was left blinking in the light.
My two kids were playing outside in the hall and looked at me in utter astonishment.
He is risen?!
They cried and scampered away to tell the Good Lady.
I laughed and traipsed downstairs after them, entering the kitchen where everyone had congregated.
Oh my god, truly it is a miracle!
The Good Lady fell to her knees weeping with joy.
What the bloody hell is going on here?
I grumbled in the way of all hungover men who don't smell bacon from the kitchen.
We can't believe it? We didn't expect this. After last night? All those beers... It's only eight o'clock and you have risen? It's a miracle!
The Good Lady looked upwards as if to the heavens themselves.
I made a face like a farmer finding his prize sheep trying on his wife's clothes.
Then I stopped short. Wait, they were right. I had had a lot of beers last night. I remember feeling the need to reward myself after cleaning my decking out the back garden and the job taking all day in the baking hot sun which in itself was unusual as it was only Spring.
I had even got some peskily painful splinters in my hands and feet.
I remember complaining wildly of dying as I lay on the couch afterwards.
And yet, here I was. Alive and feeling remarkably ok.
I started to feel a tickle of realisation dawn on me as I put two and two together. This was no small event. The children gasping at the miracle before them. The Good Lady in awe at my rising...
I mean was it not Easter? Had I not returned?
I reached out and placed a hand on my children's heads.
It wasn't too great a leap to make and I could avoid it no longer.
Holy shit.
I am Jesus.