This morning, like all other mornings, i followed my routine - get out of bed, head straight to the bathroom, get out and brush my teeth, bathe etc. I missed one important part of the ritual though - washing my feet. So i decided to wash my feet at the sink after brushing my teeth. It's a trick i learnt during my growing years from a fairly religious but lazy uncle who before praying, would finish all his ablutions at the wash basin - including washing his feet, which he would raise up into the bowl of the basin.
I guess it wasn't a big deal for him, considering he's over six feet tall. It wasn't a big deal for me either: even when i was four feet two inches, i would manage to raise my feet one at a time to the high basin and wash them. At least, it wasn't a big deal till this morning.
Still supremely confident about my ability to do what i used to do with such ease all those years ago, i hummed to myself and raised my right foot to the basin - it's at least three feet high - like it was the most natural thing in the world. I'm thinking to myself, "Mmm not bad, despite all those lapsed years and my mammoth size, i can still do this" when i felt my thigh muscles knot up. And stay that way.
Oh oh. It hurt, but there was no way i could pull my leg back down because i was almost close to the basin bowl. So, ever so gingerly, i let my foot land in the basin ("TIMBER!") and let the water flow from the tap. Then came the killer part - bringing my foot back down.
Forget it. I'm not describing it - even thinking of it is traumatising and doesn't do an iota of good for my ego. All i will say is, for the first time in my life, the realisation - of what it must be like to move steadily towards a creaking old age - hit me.
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