Friday, January 11, 2008

The Dark Mistress of Snot


I don't think I have had the flu - the actual flu- since my teens. No wonder everyone rushes off to the doctor thinking they are going to die, that's the way it feels...for real. I think the criteria for judging if one has a cold or flu should be the regularity of complaints coming from the infected person; the more you complain the less likely it is to be the flu, because with the flu, one has no energy to complain, or roll over, or cough.
I started to see the virus in me as the manifestation of some Latin-American style "Day of the Dead" Icon, some skeletal creature in female form working her necessary evil on me through fatigue, head congestion and, the most evil of all, endless viscous snot.
I spent one night dreaming that the bed was a raft on a dark, choppy sea. I and the other raft members spent our time trying to knit a sail out of rags but just kept making more convoluted rags.
My snoring got so oppressive my Dear had to move down to the couch.
One night I sweat through five separate shirts.
For several days I felt as though I had swallowed razor blades and that and a completely blocked nose reduced my diet of tiny swallows of soup when ever I could raise my head.
But as thick as the fog spread by Lady Influenza was it lifted suddenly leaving me with a slight sniffle and little else as a memento.
I am stunned by how healthy I feel. I feel as though I ought to make an offering to Lady Influenza thanking her for the weird dreams and leaving me unscarred...but what? Used tissue? Ginger tea? Warm blankets?

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