The One Who Won't Get Out Of The Bed Memoona Amjid   © Copyright 2022 by Memoona Amjid

Photo courtesy of  PxHere.

She had strange habits (even stranger than mine). It was Winter, so it was a perfect time for people like us to take a long break from bathing. But she took the longest break ever known to me.

It was a really big feat for her to get up 30 minutes before first lecture and wash her face. In fact, even I have seldomly seen her getting up on her own (even five minutes before the first lecture).

Its not like no one tried to wake her. In fact, everyone of her lounge took turns in trying to wake her up but she countered each attack and went to sleep again. One would call her at seven and she will respond, next one will push her at 7:15 and she returns to her center of mass the next second, next one would pull away her blanket at 7:30 and she would pull any clothing near her to use as a blanket, the other one would forcefully shrug her and she acts like the dead who doesn't feel anything at all and again goes back to sleep.

When only five minutes were left before lecture. Then, they would call their last resort “me”. Well, it wasn’t exactly pleasant to be their ‘last resort’ as it means that my way of waking was brutal enough to wake someone who sleeps like the dead. Its not like I can help it, as there was no other way to take her to the class. If I could I would have bought a wheelchair to carry that dead sleeper around as she prioritizes sleep over her life. Since I can't even buy a chair for my poor student self, buying a wheelchair was way out of question.

Now there were many maneuvers to wake that numb sleeper. I had many techniques that could wake something like her. I will tell some of my techniques that were used exclusively on her. Technique number 1: Finger flick. In this technique we provide momentum via our thumb to our middle finger and flick it with precision on her cheek. When a flick is done with enough precision and tensile strength the dead sleeper would open his eyes like it was granted life again. Technique number 2: lifting the leg. In this technique, we hold the heel of that person gently and firmly, then lift the leg to 90 degrees in an instant, such that one complete limb is in the air vertically upward.it is done in a second, this sudden change in inertia startles that creature enough to open his eyes in fear. Technique number 3: patting on shoulder (more like slapping on shoulder). This is a technique that is often used by our Asian mothers. In this technique we slap hard and fast multiple times on one shoulder. We continue slapping as long as the enemy doesn’t surrender and sits up on bed. Otherwise continue slapping, the enemy will give up soon enough. Technique number 4: deprive the enemy of warmth. This technique is viable only in cold mornings, this is not a simple pull and drag technique. We not only pull the blanket and hide it; we will also take all the surrounding things away (that have even slightest heat). Like pillow, her bed sheet, anything that could cover her, even her college bag. Cuz we can't take any chances, for the enemy is persistent.

As such, many techniques were devised and improvised for this creature’s attendance in college. Why didn’t we tried to verbally wake her? Many would ask such question? Oh, we did? we always try to make her feel guilty for such carelessness. But the problem is that; she agrees and does feel guilty. U can't reason with a party that agrees with u. She is a completely different person in her sleep. That is the party that opposes everything and says to leave her alone and that she will take care of it. But again, she can't do a thing here; feels guilty again later when she wakes up. So, we can't argue with a party who surrenders before the fight in their conscious state of mind. And this habit really took a great toll on her college attendance later. We will talk about that problem some other time.

Those were normal college days. Problem gets escalated even more when we have test in the morning. There is one subject that scares her more than anything. It doesn’t matter whether it is hard or easy, she just doesn't want to open the book of that subject. She doesn’t even try to. Her stubbornness gets amplified many times on the test morning. All the techniques are useless when it comes to biochemistry. Then again, she says her usual dialogue ‘I'll deal with it later’’ but that later never came. So, on BioChem test morning, we give up and leave her lying on her bed. She always leaves her past’s, present’s and future’s problems to the “future her”. I think; maybe she forgets the fact that the future her is also “her”. So, her tomorrow’s her would leave tomorrow’s problems to the day after tomorrow’s “her” and the day after tomorrow’s “her” will also leave her problems to the day after after tomorrow’s “her”. And this cycle of stubbornness goes on. So, she can't expect much from the past her, the present her and the future her. Due to these actions, a single snowball rolls day after day after day after day till the time comes; when it becomes a huge “snow roller”. She will have to exert an insane amount of effort to deal with it, that could have been dealt with minimum effort on the actual day. Well, that is a problem for the “future her”, so we will talk about it in the future.