Now that I think about it, I never really woke up today. I worry that I woke down.

When the day first broke, my alarm went off, but actually it went on and on and on. Thank heavens, I thought, as I pulled back the silk curtains. The sky was still blue! Or was it? The longer I looked, it turned tangerine too with speckles of freckly fuchsia.

Where was that young butler of mine? Would he see things the same? I was about to call out, but I couldn’t recall his name. Was it Jaspar or Jamie? Jason or Jacob? Or did his name start with C?

I decided to fix myself a cup of oolong tea and get to the bottom of my funny befuddlement. The kitchen felt opposite, yet suspiciously the same. Left was still left and right was still right, but what if they were wrong all along? If they had switched, which was now which? And why did directions matter at all?

My thoughts were a wreck, a tangle, a knot. The more I kept thinking, the knottier they got. Get it together, Bob! Or pull it apart! Either which way, you misguided old fart!

The tea had cooled down now, so I chugged the whole mug. Bleghhh! Watery! Boring! Bland! I was losing my mind and now my tongue too? Milk, I thought, but the fridge was all empty. Honey, but the jars were all gone. What exactly was I paying this blasted butler to do?

I hung my head and retreated to bed to stretch out for a stretch of time.

Under my ruffled duvet, I wondered who knows what, and how knows when, and if where and why would ever meet again.

You see, I was discombobulated!

Or was I discombedulated? Anyway, anydid, anydo, I was going back to bed!

So I wrapped my ruffled mind in a wrinkled blanket and slowly and slowlier, my mind began to untwist, unjumble, and unwind. Whatever it was, it was working! I was reaching a realization, an epiphany of the finest calibre. I would stay put in bed, this little isle of predictable pleasure. For forever.

It was, without a shadow of doubt, the perfect solution to my confusion!

Or was it?

I swear I was on the cusp of untangling that most bedeviling knot when I was interrupted by the butler’s voice. “But where will you go, sir?”

“What do you mean, where will I go?”

“I see that you’re staying in bed, but where will you go?”

I spit my words across the room. “I’m not going anywhere! Bed is where I went, where I am, and where I will be, you fool!”

“With all due respect, old man, you’re misunderstanding me.”

“I’m not misunderstanding anything! If anything, I’m over understanding!”

“I don’t mean to be rude. I mean where will you go…pee!”

“Go pee?! Go pee?!”

And then I admitted it like an idiot!

“I was going to hold it,” I sniveled to what’s-his-name.

“You can’t hold it all day! You can’t even hold it all morning! You’re gonna hafta go!”

“YOU GO! I’M STAYING IN BLOODY BED!”

“You really shouldn’t yell, sir. I understand it all now. In fact, I think I might have untangled that little knot of yours. You’ve been holding it and you need to let it go.”

“What? Right here? In bed?”

“No! Your knot! Your silly little knot! Your discombobulation!”

“IT’S NOT LITTLE AND IT’S NOT SILLY!”

“Okay, okay. It’s huge and serious! But trust me. You need to get off your island and stop holding it, old man!”

“EUREKA, CHARLIE!

“YOU REMEMBERED MY NAME!”

“I REMEMBERED EVERYTHING!”

It was then that the curtains shifted and the grey clouds lifted and the sunlight hit me in a golden halo of divine clarity! I would go and I would go again and let go and then let go again and my knot would untie itself because I wasn’t holding on to it or anything any longer anymore!

And then I wet the bed.