My body has had quite a lot to say recently.
It started talking last Thursday, when I developed the headache that I now carry with me at all times. Oddly enough, this headache, while making me squint and periodically push my fingers into my eye sockets until colors explode with black and red abandon, has not put me in a particularly bad mood.
“I’m the same way,” my sister says. “Why let pain get in the way of a good time?”
Still, I’ve been subconsciously reaching for my temples for days.
“Kinda expect to find a vise there, don’t you?” This from my body.
“Yes,” I admit. “I reach up, expecting to find a bolt, a set of calipers perhaps. And yet, I find nothing. I don’t know what’s going on. ”
“Wait’ll tomorrow,” my body says. “Hoo, boy.”
“Hoo, boy?” I frown. “What does that mean?”
My body shrugs, snaps open a newspaper and pretends to be deep in thought. “Hmm. Says here we can expect falling temperatures.”
My brain squeezes itself past the pressure being applied to my eyeballs and barks a mirthless sound approximating a laugh. “Ha! You do realize it’s February in Minnesota? You can repeat the words “falling temperatures” until March.”
The brain, she squints at the body. “Are you, sir, toying with me?”
And for the first time since puberty, my body sets down its paper and looks my brain square in the face.
“One,” it says, “I need you to drink more water.”
“But I’m not from –“
“For cryin’ eye, Brain, if I hear that tired old line about not being from water-drinking people one more time, I’m going to take you to a strip club.”
“Well I shan’t go,” the brain says. “It’s exploitation.”
The body shrugs. “Some of them are nice to look at.”
The brain purses its lips primly. “Do shut up.”
“And sleep,” the body goes on, “I want more sleep.”
Silence from the brain. The brain likes to stay up.
“And the neti pot. You said you’d use it more often. It’s a very dry time of year, and my nasal passages are aching.”
The brain nods cautiously. “I found myself cogitating on this just the other day, that the headache may, perchance, be the inadvertent result of self-created dehydration.”
The body snorts in disgust. “And I’m cogitating,” it says, “of giving you a swirly, you keep that kinda talk up.”
“A swir—“
“I’m gonna stick my head – full of you, brain-face – in the toilet and keep flushing until you shut up.”
The brain blinks slowly, rises, clears its throat. “Upon further reflec – um, I’m thinking that perhaps you know best in this case, my dear body. In bed tonight by 9:00, I promise.”
“And water? You’ll drink more water?”
“I shall make a concerted effort.”
The body heaves a sigh of relief. “You’re a good brain when you try.”