God, I was so tired.

The alarm goes off and I am so asleep. I pick up the phone and press ‘snooze’. Or, maybe I did.

As usual, I lie awake wondering if I accidentally chose ‘dismiss’ instead.

But only half awake. F is curled up behind me cuddling me and I am warm and I think that if I did chose ‘dismiss’ it’s OK and, maybe, I could phone into work and say I was ill or something. Just this once. After I chose ‘snooze’ (or, maybe ‘dismiss’), he cuddles me tighter.

But I didn’t press ‘dismiss’ and, in what seems seconds but is, in fact, 5 minutes, the alarm goes again.

I get up.

I close the doors behind me and go to the bathroom and shave and wash and wet my hair – all the while sleeping still. I don’t shave properly so have to do a bit again. Dino, who always gets up with alarm, realises that this time we’re not going out (F will take him later) and stretches himself out by the bathroom door – front feet forward, back feet backwards – like a rug.

After I have my shirt on I wonder if I’ve put on deodorant but think I must have because I remember putting on cologne and it’s like a habit – deodorant first, cologne next. But I don’t really know and, right at that moment, couldn’t care less. God, I feel tired. But so tired that if I lay down I’m sure I would be snoring within a second.

I hadn’t put the full bathroom light on, only the one over the mirror. I switch it off and walk out to go to the kitchen.

Of course, even if I know he’s there, I am so sleepy that I forget that he’s there and so, I trip over the rug. The rug moves, of course, and as such I start to fall headlong towards the bread prover (a big wooden cabinet that I have which is rather unusual) and, of course, put my hand out in front of me to stop myself from crashing either to the floor or into the bread prover.

My finger tips made contact with the bread prover but such was the weight of myself that it bent my longest finger back and I thought I heard a crack.

I didn’t swear or shout or scream for I realised that I had known he was there and that it was entirely my sleepy state that had caused this.

But my finger hurt. In fact, it was difficult to hold things. My fingers (all of them) felt kind of numb.

And, now, as I write this, my second finger (my longest) still hurts so maybe I have broken it.

Or maybe not since it hasn’t really swollen up at all.

I will see how it goes.

I remember when my thumb broke, skiing. There wasn’t really anything they could do to fix it, it just had to heal itself. The same will be true of this.

So I wait to see if it will become swollen.

In any event, it is more difficult to type.

At least it’s my left hand and, apart from smoking, I don’t use it so much.

But damn anyway!