Southend U3A

November 2023

Full Moon - Anne Wilson

What’s the time for goodness sake? I seem to have been lying here for an eternity, but it can’t be more than midnight and I went to bed at eleven.

I know why. It’s a Full Moon outside and those susceptible to its effects apparently get a less than satisfactory night’s sleep when it makes its appearance – even when the curtains are closed. No-one can answer why for certain. It’s one of nature’s mysteries.

I’m susceptible to practically everything, anyway. You name it and I have an adverse reaction to it. Plunge a Covid vaccination needle into my arm and I’m like a limp dish rag for at least a day afterwards; put the clocks back to Greenwich Mean Time and I go about like a bear with a sore head until I’ve got used to the change; and don’t get me started on air-conditioning – I go about coughing and wheezing for weeks afterwards even if I’ve only had a short exposure to its noxious fumes.

I reach out and take a few sips of the water from the glass beside my bed. Almost no sooner have I sipped it, then I want to pee. That’s par for the course these days, I’m afraid and if I get up once during the night then I end up getting up three or four times in total; it sets off a pattern. I know there’s useful mental visions you can conjure up when you want to pass urine and can’t – such as when you have to give a sample at the G. P’s or in hospital and your nerves get the better of you – but it doesn’t seem to work in reverse. I try thinking of a tap that’s jammed and won’t turn on, but it doesn’t help. I still want to go.

I know: I’ll find something to distract me. Reading might do the trick. Something calming. What am I reading at the moment? I rummage through the pile on my bedside table. Ah . . . here it is! My little bedside light is scarcely necessary at the moment with Mr. Full Moon doing his best to provide his own, more intrusive, one.

‘Bullet Through The Heart.’ I bought it on the basis that it’s a classic who-dunnit thriller publicised as something that will scare the wits out of you, so it’s probably not a good selection in helping you nod off. I’ll give it a go, though. Now, where was I? I know: it was where that infuriatingly self-satisfied detective had gathered all the suspects together and was outlining the various reasons why any one of them might have been the perpetrator, as they say in criminal circles. It would be wonderful to satisfy my curiosity and learn just who it was. Then, perhaps I can sleep, calm and secure in that knowledge. Strange that there seem to be about another hundred pages to go, though – very unusual once a murderer has been revealed.

The detective burbles on and on and I can feel my eyelids droop. What a smug bastard the man is.

‘Now I can reveal the murderer’s identity,’ he tells them. ‘It was . . .’

The lights in the room go off suddenly and a shot rings out, whilst the detective crumples slowly to the floor. Panic ensues.

Someone leans over the body. ‘He’s dead,’ they say, solemnly, after a cursory examination of his vital organs. ‘Now we must find out which one of us was responsible.’ I could scream. Not another hour or so of reading ponderous waffle, with an investigation of who murdered the person doing the investigating.

I throw the book on the floor in exasperation. I’m not spending one more frustrating minute on it.

How about counting sheep? Does the monotony of it really send you to sleep? I’m willing to try anything.

I discover that woolly creatures, ambling about aimlessly in herds and bleating pathetically whilst they do so, irritating but not soporific, so I try another tack. I then visualise one sheep at a time, each with a number on his back, negotiating a treacherous hurdle at Epsom Racecourse. It’s a disaster. They all land on top of each other in one great heap once they’ve jumped the fence, bleating for England as they do so. Time to try something else.

Outside in the street I can soon hear voices of the human variety.

‘I love you,’ says a soppy-sounding male voice in decibels suitable for day-time audibility but taking no account that it’s the middle of the night.

‘I love you too,’ responds a female one.

‘I’ve never loved anyone like I love you,’ the male voice protests.

‘And I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you.’

‘Love you more,’ insists the male voice.

It’s not exactly Shakespeare and for two pins I would get up, draw back the curtains, and give them a piece of what’s left of my mind; then repair to the bathroom to do what I had been willing myself not to do for the past I-don’t-know-how-long. There’s a pause and I close my eyes. Bliss: they’ve stopped. Then the female voice starts up again. ‘Are you sure you love me?’

‘Of course, I’m sure.’

‘Surer than sure?’ the female voice whines.

I can bear it no longer.

‘Yes: he’s bloody sure,’ I shout through gritted teeth as I wind down the window. ‘In fact, the whole neighbourhood’s absolutely bloody well sure.’

‘No need to be offensive, mate,’ calls back a male voice, sounding affronted. ‘Weren’t you ever young?’

‘It seems like a long time ago,’ I call through the window. ‘Particularly when I hear people wittering on like you two. Can’t you go and do your romancing outside someone else’s bedroom window?’

The man retaliates with two words I can’t quite make out, but the second one sounds suspiciously as if it ends in ‘Off.’

My remonstrations have the desired effect, though, and they disappear slowly into the night, clutching each other so tightly that you fear they will have bruises come up on their arms the next day. I pay a visit to the bathroom. Might as well now I’m up.

The hours pass by. I doze on and off fitfully and wake myself up with a snort, coming to suddenly following visions of a prize sheep who’s just become favourite for the Grand National. My lips feel dry: so much so that they’re caked in little crusty bits on the top and the bottom. That’s all I can feel of them, so I lick them avidly. Reaching for the glass of water at my side, I finish it off in one fell swoop. It’s soothing.

I look at my watch. It’s approaching daybreak, thank goodness. I snuggle down in my bed and smile with contentment – a couple of hours sleep would not go amiss now. Forgive me if my wave goodbye to my ‘friend’ the full moon is not one of fondness. I’m pleased to see the back of him for another month. Sleep: glorious sleep: how I welcome you! sooner have I closed my eyes than I wake up again.