Early Morning Thoughts

It is early morning.

Black as your hat in the bedroom.

Something has awoken me, but it is all quiet in the house.

Brain fuzzy and unsure.

Surfing the darkness like an expert.

Been here before.

Off in the distance lies the madness horizon.

Beckoning like an ancient Greek siren.

Voice and words enticing.

But James Joyce pipes up and reminds me that this is just a stream of unconsciousness and to pay it no heed.

Quiet as a graveyard in the bedroom (once the priest, the diggers and the wailing mourners have departed)

"Breathe, breathe in the air", the great words of Mr Pink wander into my mind and then crept out again (or was that the cat?)

My mind wanders amongst the planets to be found in our bedroom, they glow in the night.

Swift and flighty Mercury, like a broken Icarus, burnt and fallen but staying close to the heart of the sun

Venus hot and dangerous, an atmospheric hot house made from a runaway climate change, does our future lie there? 

Earth blue and beautiful, seven billion of us plague the planet and with an inevitable mathematical geometry there will be three billion more in my lifetime.

Mars, tired and worn, rusted and arid.

Seas and oceans lost over the aeons of time.

My Holst suite ruminations are interrupted as the sound of the cat wailing downstairs breaks me out of my reverie

Light and noise appear, is it the light of an oncoming train?

It is!

An electrical fault has started the very expensive train set that skirts the edge of the room high up towards the ceiling (it was the only place we could put it, there are space restrictions in a Victorian two up two down)

The bright light from the locomotive strikes my face, and for a long reflected moment I see the steam from the funnel.

It is a very expensive train set

The train toots, and Casey Jones, engineer extraordinaire, leaps into view from a distant time and place, extracted like magic from the depths of my memory

The shows theme song comes strongly into my mind, "Steamin and a Rollin, Casey Jones", a blast from the past, especially when he pulls that wire to trigger the Tootin'.

After the wail, and with padding, swift and silent no more, but heavy footed and unsure, age and senility claw at his very being as he struggles to understand what was and what now is.

The door is thumped, possibly with his head or more likely his shoulder, no longer a gentle push from a silent killing paw, that is long consigned to history

A plaintive cry, a possee of louder ones follow

Bridget, automatically and without waking, pats the duvet and the senile arthritic cats jumps up with a second or twos hesitation.

Everything about the cat is hesitant and unsure.

Age has wrecked this silent killing machine .

Once on the bed, loud purring ensues, strangely comforting, warm, relaxing, a primal throbbing, the essential cat noise.

At least someone is happy at this ridiculous hour of the morning.
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Outside the window, birds start to tweet and twitter and start their joyful odes to the breaking  of another new day.

Can I get back to sleep again?

Apparently not.

Appear to be writing this post.

Damn it

Twenty two minutes before the 5 a.m. alarm.

I'll turn off the tablet.

Turn off the light.

Snuggle down next to a warm somnolent Bridget.

"Ignore the birds, ignore the cat", says a stray thought in my mind, much too wide awake for comfort.

"Sleeping minutes can feel like hours", I hope as I drift off.