Feeling All Beat Up

Rosa Martinez

HAVANA TIMES, March 29 — Today I got up earlier than usual.  When the alarm clock sounded at 5:50 a.m., I’d already been up for a while puttering around in the kitchen.

I was moving from here to there, shifting around from one way to another, but I still felt uncomfortable.  My whole body ached.  I spent the whole night feeling bad, which is why I had decided to get out of bed ahead of time.  It was better to begin my domestic chores than to remain there moaning to myself in bed.

I began going through my morning routine: I prepared breakfast, fed the chickens, picked up Tania’s toys, cleaned and straightened up parts of the house, dressed the two girls and got ready to go to work.

When I was set to leave house, the pain returned.  It felt like I’d been hit by a truck.  My legs were heavy and my back stiff – I could hardly move.  “What the heck was this?” I wondered.

Until that moment my husband hadn’t paid any attention.  He thought I had slept poorly due to having drunk too much coffee the night before, so the pains didn’t take him by surprise.  He says I’m always complaining.

“I’m worried,” he told me.  “Today you’re in a state where you can’t even walk.  Did you fall?  Did something happen to you?”

I looked at him and said, “Honey, didn’t you see the number of hits and homeruns the team from Granma Province gave me last night?  How could I not be in pain?  That is something no human body can withstand.”

He smiled and said: “Ah, so that’s why?  Don’t worry.  Today we’ll get them back.”

Click on the tumbnails below to view all the photos in this gallery