ugly bugs' last stand

i'm exhaustingly observant. i mean, literally.
without meaning to, i keep tabs on the minute, rarely consequential, details of the world around me. it's like the scrolling headlines on the news, but instead of "President chokes on brussel sprout...Starbucks stock plummets," it's more like, "...Mr. Y is wearing loud pants again...Mr. T got his hair cut too short and looks like a shaved warthog...Ms. M is wearing glasses instead of contacts today...two second year students are pretending to be sick so they can go home...a dead bee is stuck inside the glass cabinet...one of the office girls is delivering mail...Mr. S just got up for more tea...Ms. F put the tape in the player on the wrong side, so it may record over something important...Mr. S is talking to that other guy who looks like a PE teacher but isn't..."
i can't stop taking it all in. if you know me, this is why i get so worn out from shopping malls. there everything is made to compete for your attention, so it's like a million things are stuffing themselves into my eyes and ears at once. the only time i get real relief from this part of myself is when i'm sick, and head colds are the best. i came down with one yesterday.

then,
i smile absently. talking is heavy and breathing is audible. my hearing slips inward, can't really follow the outside anymore. just a slow, dull blur of sound, distant. things move across my eyes, my vision is also inward. i feel my heart beating slowly and thoroughly throughout my body.
Pump.
Pump.
Pump.
i could listen to it in my head all day. hands and feet are warm for once. my body is totally relaxed, staring into space, overjoyed to be still and lay here agape on a pile of tumbled blankets. my mind is hardly moving at all, so i’m easily and comfortably entertained by the dust motes floating by in sunlight.
on my lunch break i just sat on the loveseat for fifteen minutes feeling wonderfully, stupidly relaxed and thought two thoughts the whole time, after which i almost fell asleep. i would happily have succumbed, but i had to shuffle back to school.

last night i took some nyquil to help with the faucet nose, and i woke sluggishly with a nyquil hangover. i mumbled around with my eyes half closed, well, one completely closed, and fixed my tea, heated some scones, and then started to sit down under my kotatsu. i flipped the blanket back a little and saw the writhing red body of a fat mukade!! cue horrified scream. instantly my nyquil hangover was incinerated in adrenaline. that got my eyes open.