Waking with a guillotine headache

In sleep, I’m as still as a stone. I don’t know it, of course, being asleep. But the alarm chimes and the movement is as jarring as the sound.

My head pounds. Movement … Sound …. Light … everything is an affront.

Apparently this headache escalated to its heights, undetected, while I slept.

My body kept itself extra still so as not to bring it to consciousness.

Now I’m behind the curve to contain it.

I take something, and sip at coffee in dimly lit rooms (still too bright) and try not to think about the asinine incoming work emails, or really anything that might make this worse.

Though worse is hard to imagine, it is technically possible.

Off with my head!