It started, oh, maybe a day ago, after Kish had been fighting a cold for a few days. The germs, like the Borg, are trying to tell me that resistance is futile.
That unwanted scratchiness in the back of your throat. Mucus pouring down the esophagus like the sluggish River Styx. The occasional, unexpected cough. And just feeling a little bit . . . off.
Not a full-blown cold, though. No fever. No hacking fits that wake me up at night. No light-headedness. No uncontrollable sneezing.
I’m treating my condition with the basic patent remedies and folk nostrums. Aspirin. Juice. Ricola Natural Herb cough drops. I’m staying inside and keeping warm. And, at night, I’m imbibing a glass or two of wine to dry out the sinuses and help with getting a good night’s sleep.
I think I’m on the brink, teetering between ruddy good health and the alternative. I may have come through the worst of it already, or I may be ready to plunge.
Immediately I began to wonder: has there been an outbreak of an exotic disease somewhere in the world that I haven’t heard about? Or, was this woman just ill, and trying to be somewhat sensitive to the health of her fellow passengers. (I say “somewhat,” because I can’t believe that those surgical masks really provide much protection, and if she really was sick the rest of us on that confined metal tube with filled recycled air were likely to get whatever germs she might have been trying to contain. So, she really wasn’t that thoughtful after all — if she was sick, the thoughtful thing would have been to refrain from traveling and exposing the rest of us.)
