until the dizziness goes

the strumming wake-up melody from the tablet, get up to silence it, a bout of coughing on the way across the room arresting the progress towards the small writing desk upon which the device is resting.
The brain seems to be stuck in an unsteady swirl affecting balance, and now the chest is sore.
The cold has not gone away.
Despite all good intentions, there is no way that the journey to work will be undertaken in this state.
Go back to bed.

A little later, the son's alarm clock sounds, an evil sound like a maritime klaxon. There is the sound of him struggling to silence it from bed.

Sleep for a few moments, until the dizziness goes.

There is the sound of another alarm, the son collects alarm clocks.

Then there is the sound of his footsteps, coming over to see how his father is. Tell him of the decision not to go to work today, explain.
It is six in the morning.
And it is cold.
So he jumps into the bed, under the blanket for a cuddle, for a warm up. In the last years he has grown to be a young man of fourteen, it is a strange situation, but he has this cold as well, he is suffering from the same sort of cough, the same dizziness.

A Christmas 'flu that has progressed into the new year.

And when the blankets have warmed him, he returns to his own bed