24-hour constant companion

A new feeling now.

I have a new best friend. His name is nausea. He's the kind of friend you go through phases with; he'll disappear for months and then suddenly be round everyday. I never know when he's gonna show up, we're both busy people and, to be honest, if we waited for a time to suit us both we'd never get anything done.

He always comes at the worst time; he always comes unannounced.

He hears it when I lie down to sleep, creeps under my door and into my room like a criminal, crawls onto my bed and curls up gently on my chest while I sit in awkward silence. I can't move, I can't think, this is an awkward social interaction in which few words are exchanged and I never, ever offer him a drink.

Nausea will fall asleep right away, like a cat in its favourite lap, his breaths come shallow and irregular, now none at all, now so deep that it pushes down on my rib cage and I can't help but moan in discomfort. I can't roll over, I can't snuggle down, I can't even move for fear of waking up. God forbid I ever wake him. Nausea is an anxious sleeper, woken to early he tends to get violent.

Then, it's all I can do to stay still, trying to lull him back into slumber, wrestling silently with my demanding friend and my suddenly absent God for some kind of deal, some kind of peace arrangement just please don't let this end in fighting.

Fighting comes anyway, nausea scrambles inside my shirt, an arm round my neck and I carry him silently struggling to the sink and that's where the fun starts. It's all about the adrenaline then, my body shaking and my pulse racing - this could almost be sexy but it's really, really not.

Nausea shoves my fingers down my throat but nothing's doing. Not even tearing him out of my arms and flushing him down the toilet would help. He's too feisty for that, too stubborn to give in.

But so am I, and we lie in stalemate til morning, me with my book, him with his deep, stirring breathing. He leaves then, to cruise the town and let me get some sleep, only to return in the afternoon to try and break me down once more.

An odd but faithful companion is mine. He's always here, one way or another. Sometimes I almost imagine a cousin of his, sneaking in and taking slumber in my heart and mind, explaining the other way that I've grown accustomed to feeling. But that's just fancy, surely, such a creature couldn't exist and besides, I belong to only one at the moment - my new best friend.