During my time in The Corsham School Sixth Form, I would often get terrible migraines. One morning I came in and had a free period first thing in the morning and so I decided I would head up to the study room and do some work for my philosophy class. Almost as soon as I looked at the computer screen, I realised that I could see the visual aura of a migraine. I suppose some readers may be unfamiliar with this, so I shall give a brief explanation: when you’re going to have a migraine, the first thing you’ll probably notice is a small grey blurry patch in your vision, this slowly grows over an hour or so until you can barely see at all, and as you can see less and less, your head hurts more and more and you’ll find yourself with a growing feeling of nausea. So, yes, I knew I was about to get very ill. I made a little sign which said “ill, please do not disturb”, found a nice seat in the study room and laid down to try and sleep.

Anywho, I liked to have high attendance (and, in fact, was congratulated during our leaver’s event for being present every single day) and so stayed in and hoped it would pass, rather than heading home. The free period passed and then my good friend Rory popped up to the study room to find me and head to our philosophy class. Sadly, the migraine was still terribly painful and so I asked him to explain to our teacher why I wouldn’t be present, and he did so. The day passed by and before long it was time for the final lesson: History. At this point in the day, I felt absolutely awful and the only reason I wasn’t going home was due to the fact that I was not well enough for the ten minute walk back. I had moved out of the study room, and was then lying on a sofa in the common room, Rory had, very kindly, explained the situation to our history teacher and I planned to stay there another hour before attempting to head home.

Ten minutes into the history lesson, the teacher walked into the common room.

“Adam, don’t be lazy! Get up and go to the lesson,” she said.

“I would, but I feel terribly ill and I wouldn’t be able to read or write anything, and since it hurts a lot, I may as well stay here,” I replied.

“No, I won’t have any of that! I’m gonna head back now, but I expect you to join the class within the next ten minutes!” and with that, she left.

I really did not want to be in that history lesson, and so I thought up a quick plan: I’d hide from her. Despite being a very tall person, I was able to hide under the sofa without it being obvious that I was there, so I moved off the sofa and shuffled under it. A little while later, she came back up looking for me, but she didn’t realise I was under the sofa and left again (heh heh.) After that, I would have moved onto the top of the sofa again, but I didn’t want her to come back and find me, and I felt so weak that I decided to stay under there.

After a few more minutes passed, two sixth formers from the year below (a male and a female who I never learned the names of) came in and sat on the sofas. One of them sat on the sofa I was under and the other sat on a sofa on the other side facing it. Not wanting to have to explain myself, I decided to keep quiet and hope they didn’t notice me.

“Err,” said one to the other, “there’s a man under your sofa.”

“Ha ha, yeah right!” she replied.

“No, seriously, there’s somebody under there!”

I decided I had to do something, and so I popped my head out beside her feet and looked up on her.

“Hello!” I said, smiling at them.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed.

“Your friend was serious,” I told her, “I am underneath your sofa, as I’m sure you’ve realised. You see, I currently have a terrible migraine and ended up under the sofa to hide from my history teacher. So, if you don’t mind, I’m just gonna try and stay here and sleep.”

The pair of them shared a small “well, that was weird” exchange, and then carried on talking as normal. Before long, a few more people came into the room and started socialising. I wasn’t paying much attention though; I was just trying to sleep. I probably should have paid attention as they were thinking up some plan which involved me…

A little while later, I was very surprised to find the sofa lifted off of me and carried away. I could see the blurry shapes of lots of people staring down at me through the dazzling light. I squinted and gave them a ‘hello’. I then had the rather unpleasant experience of somebody in a skirt standing directly over my head. Eventually, however, they all left and let me stay under the sofa in peace.

The day ticked away, and at around 3 p.m. I sent I text to my friend Rory and apologised as I would not be able to walk home with him as I did every day. I stayed there for about an hour more or so and then I began to wonder how exactly I was going to get home, so I sent another text to a friend of mine and asked them if they would be willing to drive me home, and, very kindly, they did! Although, on the other hand, they retroactively charged me about thirty pounds for that lift, meaning it probably would have been cheaper to hire a taxi…

(On a serious note, if you happen to suffer from migraines, then you might find this article from Healthline very helpful and interesting.)