Losing sleep over fading sight, voice with diminished power

"You mean you did not go to bed?" the young man of the house enquired when he found me at the study early yesterday morning.

Since he had left me working when he went to bed, he presumed I hadn't turned in.

I probably did not, because a few things gave me a sleepless night.

My reading glasses broke – yet again – while a sharp pain in the throat compelled me to sit up and steady myself before swallowing.

In such moments, one realises the gift of small things like breathing and swallowing; things that we do even without knowing how we do them.

Since I hardly witness the young man's morning rituals, I was surprised at the extent to which Nickelodeon has caught his attention.

Consequently, my early start was almost turned into a horrid waste as the animations on the screen started their screeching screams.

In the next hour, I could only manage a paltry 100 words of this column. So much for early rising!

But it was just as well that I was started early; he sipped his tea and declared it was 'disgusting', which is a generic term he uses for anything he finds unpalatable.

The last time I heard the term, it was to describe boys he had seen snooping on girls in the loo in school.

The 'disgusting' cup of tea, it turned out, had been made from milk that had nearly gone bad, so a fresh cup had to be made.

That made my early rise somewhat worth the while. At least I had accomplished something within the hour.

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