Lethargy

Lethargy is a poor friend and associate.

Lethargy will share its umbrella with you, protecting you from the torrent of life, though you are never fully protected.  You still manage to get wet.

Lethargy lurches.  It peers around corners, spying upon you, as you sit upon a couch, screening movies and television shows on Netflix or Hulu.  It sends you messages through stacks of unopened mail.  It accumulates in unwashed dishes, unwashed clothes. 

Lethargy keeps you company behind closed doors, reminding you that its cousin Exhaustion is never to far away. 

Lethargy enjoys a good meal.  It always finds a place at the Thanksgiving table, hovering around the turkey carvings and selection of pies. 

Lethargy often stays long past its welcome.  Even when you give it hints that you have things to do, an agenda, meetings to attend, places to be, people to see, it manages to remain obtusely ignorant and remains behind to distract you from living.

Lethargy loves lazy Sundays, the sort of Sundays when sunlight pours through the corners of the shades, leaving slivers of light to cut bright stripes on the walls and the floors.  Lethargy holds onto to you when you attempt to rise from a Sunday bed, enticing you with sweet words of freedom.

“You don’t have to get-up,” it says, “because you don’t have a schedule today.”  Together, you and Lethargy, wrapped in sheets, listen to the sounds of outside, the cars humming along the streets, adults chatting busily while children playfully yell and scream at each other.  You and Lethargy hear the chattering of birds and the barking of dogs.

Lethargy distorts life.  Complications are never really as dire when Lethargy is around.  Lethargy keeps you just entertained enough, just occupied enough, so that you can place worries on the outside orbit of duties. 

Lethargy will remain by your side loyally until Inspiration visits, and then, Lethargy cannot leave fast enough.  Sometimes you have to call upon Inspiration to come in order to convince Lethargy to leave.  The problem always is that Inspiration is sometimes not home.

Just a warning: do not call Lethargy unless you are prepared to cater to a burdensome friend.