{"id":779,"date":"2021-04-03T10:55:55","date_gmt":"2021-04-03T10:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=779"},"modified":"2021-04-03T10:56:04","modified_gmt":"2021-04-03T10:56:04","slug":"killing-time-in-his-head-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/killing-time-in-his-head-room\/779\/","title":{"rendered":"Killing time in his head room"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The trouble with British Summer Time, apart from it being a misnomer that is, is it takes Joel Bloom nearly a week to catch up with the lost hour. Mornings are difficult: a constant struggle with his body clock, which point-blank refused to accept the evidence of his eyes when looking at his bedside clock.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan\u2019t be eight already,\u201d he would murmur in his fractured oddity of a voice. Since Becca said she was leaving, he formed the habit of talking to himself. Good company and intelligent conversation, he joked, but the reality is, he is lonely and affronted by her betrayal. The bloody postman, he thought, how much of a clich\u00e9 is THAT?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s time to look again,\u201d said his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

He stretched as he sat on the bed. An article in the New Yorker said a good stretch when you get up is healthy, and Joel\u2019s opinions were those of magazine writers, especially the New Yorker staffers, who seemed to write just for him. Try to punch the ceiling, the article commanded. He did so: his reward is a twinge in the lower right side of his back, just above the piriformis muscle, which had been troubling him these last few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pinching his belly fat, he resolved to forego chocolate today, a daily admonition that usually weakened into vapour when he sat alone in front of the television, then rolled out his yoga mat and lay on it in his PJs, panting at the effort. Five sit-ups, five press-ups, five crunches and five burpees he commanded himself. His head disobeyed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh c\u2019mon,\u201d he sighed, \u201cit\u2019s only five.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot happening,\u201d his head responded, \u201cmaybe tomorrow.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019ll do you a deal: five sit-ups and we can get back into bed and read the Guardian until eight-thirty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDeal,\u201d said his head. He was struggling after four, but plastering on a grimace, he pulled his torso upright one more time and then collapsed into a panting heap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJesus H Christ on a bike,\u201d he wheezed, picking up his iPad with a trembling hand, \u201cit was five sit-ups, not a marathon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTold you,\u201d his head said, \u201cbut you didn\u2019t listen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou didn\u2019t complain when we dug the garden,\u201d he responded. He laid his iPad down and waited for his room to stop gyrating, closing his eyes, and breathing slowly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was needs must,\u201d his head said, \u201cthis is just vain foolishness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay, okay,\u201d he conceded, \u201cbut shallow graves would have done. We\u2019re in the middle of nowhere, for God\u2019s sakes. No-one is going to come digging up our patio.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey have sniffer dogs,\u201d his head replied, \u201cthat\u2019s why we needed a deep pit filled with calcium oxide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He climbed out of bed again, pulled the curtains and looked down at the patio under which lay the remains of Becca and Postman Bloody Pat, grinned manically, and disappeared back into his headroom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHello, Joel,\u201d it said, \u201cwho are you going to be today?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The trouble with British Summer Time, apart from it being a misnomer that is, is it takes Joel Bloom nearly a week to catch up with the lost hour. Mornings are difficult: a constant struggle with his body clock, which point-blank refused to accept the evidence of his eyes when looking at his bedside clock.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Murder is on Joel's mind in a new flash fiction from Swansea Writers. This is, \"Killing time in his head room\" by Martyn Winters\n#flashfiction #murder","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[379,435],"tags":[442,436,439,437,438],"class_list":["post-779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-379","category-april-2021-room","tag-calcium-oxide","tag-headroom","tag-lime-pit","tag-murder","tag-patio"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-cz","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":781,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions\/781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}