columninches
I woke up on Saturday morning to find that I was ill. And no ordinary illness at that: my entire body seemed to have packed up overnight. Pain coursed through my wracked limbs; my head throbbed like the Wrath of God; and as I opened my eyes the ceiling lurched and span alarmingly above me. Even more worryingly, when I rapidly shut them again, my eyelids made a strange scratching noise that definitely wasn't normal.
I lay in bed and considered this phenomenon. The night before was something of a blur in my mind: my friend David's 21st, at which I had admittedly consumed some small quantity of alcohol -- but still, this could be no hangover; this was total mental and physical annihilation.
By 2 a.m. I was well enough to get out of bed, crawl into the kitchen and announce that I was dying. This had little effect though: my housemates, who were heartlessly eating lunch and reading the papers, scarcely glanced up. I laid my head on the table and moaned softly; in return, Zoe informed me that no one had forced me to down Sea Breezes until 2 a.m., and therefore, the whole hideous Black Death extravaganza was clearly my own fault. I chose to ignore this.
Once he had finished eating though, David took pity, and decided I needed fresh air, being of the no-nonsense school of hangover cures. Fresh air, open spaces, healthy exercise: he walked me to Port Meadow, and kept dashing cigarettes from my nerveless fingers, on the grounds that I was already full of enough toxins. Actually, though, by that stage I was feeling rather better in physical terms, having dosed myself with three Nurofen Plus, which successfully removed all bodily sensation.
The emotional hangover was still upon me though, and was as always far worse than the basic headache-and-nausea element: the strange self-pity, the feeling of isolation, the wandering around in a mist of cosmic sadness. It started to rain as we stood on the bridge; the swans were getting damp and I was filled with an aching pity for them. I wanted to gather them up and take them back to the warmth of college; to keep them in our house, perhaps in the bath. They swam round in circles going 'nabble nabble' to each other -- making the best of the cold and wet when I, I who had everything, could do nothing but abuse my body with poisons. I knew all about sin then. They were innocent and I was guilty. Zoe was right.
We wound our way back to college through the drizzle. Overhead though, the sky was gradually clearing and a tentative rainbow showed through the clouds. Our steps slowed as we watched it brighten and grow. The rainbow -- a symbol of hope for the hopeless, fresh life and regeneration.
We turned and found ourselves, quite by merest chance, halted outside Jude the Obscure. It too gleamed with the promise of better things, glowing warmly against the grey of Walton Street. There are some coincidences that should not be ignored. Hand in hand, like Adam and Eve, we ascended to the earthly paradise, and when we finally emerged two hours later, I found that in the interim both hangover and metaphysical angst had evaporated with the rain.
28th Oct 1999