Sundays in bed

Let's spend the whole of Sunday in bed. 

Let's camp out under the duvet, play cards and video games, read books, leaf through yesterday's papers. Let's make the voices on the radio the only other voices we hear until it's Monday morning. 

We don't need to leave the flat, one of us doesn't even need to leave the room. Every now and again, I'll make an expedition down the long hall to bring us things; cups of tea, chocolate and treats, toast. It's only fair, I'm the one with the special protective clothing. I'm the one with the pyjamas. 

We don't need to go out to forage for food, we can manage. There are pies in the freezer, chili from a previous weekday, all sorts of things if we're resourceful. I could be resourceful enough, if it meant that nothing got in the way of our grand plan.

Maybe we have some of those long life things in the cupboard, the ones in the foil packets. Don't look at me that way. I know the last time we had them I said "Look at those succulent chunks of meat in a rich nutritious gravy" as they slipped into the saucepan and then both of us weren't hungry because it reminded us of dog food. I know I ruined everything. We could find something, that's all I'm saying.

Our Sundays always go downhill once we get out of bed. It's a harsh world out there, full of people who aren't us, people who jostle and glower in the supermarket aisles, people who try and sell you stuff. A cold world, too; it is getting so much colder out there, you said so yourself. And yet bed is so warm, full of all the warmth we've been putting into it for hours. Looked at that way, it's an achievement. Why would you want to throw all that away?

The world on Sunday is just a dress rehearsal anyway for the world on Monday, a crueller place still where people tell you to do things and you can't say no. 

I have a theory that if we stayed in bed all day then maybe, just maybe, we could make Sundays last forever. Isn't that worth testing, just once? I could go and make us a pot of tea right now, seal the deal with bergamot. What do you say?

I rehearse this speech in my head every Sunday morning. One of these days I'm going to make it, and one of these days she's going to say yes.