Of Delusions and Dog Whistles

’Twas the first of March, and I woke up sick.

Right away I knew it was going to be one of those days. I hadn’t even woken up properly at 8 in the morning, and the sneezes had already begun.

The common cold was no stranger to me, nor I to it. That said, I really have to stress that I didn’t welcome it as often as one would think, our twenty year old acquaintanceship considered. But it was like one of those visitors who show up at your front door one day, with two duffel bags at their feet, and announce that they’re staying for the weekend.

And no matter the hints you pass or the blunt in-your-face orders to get out that you deliver, it still tweaks your cheek and settles deeper into the couch; which in this case happens to be your sinuses.

Or mine.

In any case, the repeated sneezes had me down all day. I feeling a little light in the head, or in any case, I was feeling it a bit lighter than usual. But even as I sat there, huddled in front of my laptop under that comforting piles of blankets, I wasn’t too worried.

After all, it was just a few sneezes (per minute) and a general tendency to shiver every once in a while. How bad could it get, I asked myself. I was all for betting it would clear up by the next day.

Little did I know what I was in for.

You might think what hurt me worst of all was the overall agony of that splitting headache while I was stuck in that bumpy, bone breaking bus for four hours. But no.

Far worse was the pain of betrayal.

I mean, influenza and I have been going steady for who knows how long. You’d think that it would let me know in advance if it was going to turn me into the equivalent of a gym sock within the next three days, but noooo. It just went ahead and did it, and FYI, it’s still here, still leaning back against  my tonsils and chugging down whatever it is it chugs down. Phlegm, probably, there’s plenty down there right now.

Disgusting, yes, but spare me, I had to deal with it for the last three days and counting. Forgive me for wanting to vent a little bit here, I kind of feel like I'm entitled to. Thank you.

The three hour Sunday bus ride was beckoning when I woke up with a slight sore throat. Nothing to worry about, and hey, no sneezes. I was pretty optimistic. But before that day was over, I was wishing with all my heart that sneezes were all I had to deal with.

There’s only so much sore throat, medium fever and a splitting headache you can tolerate in a boring class that keeps droning on for what seems like forever. After the first hour, time seems to stretch out till you can finally leave that stifling air conditioned hall; and the lecturer’s voice gets more and more annoying with each passing second that you could just stand up and scream.

Lucky for me, my sore throat was acting up; ergo, had I followed through, I would have been standing up and gasping in a sea of two hundred fellow students. Yes, I do count my blessings.

It was also luck that had me having to stay a night in said city that was three hours away from home. And this was luck from the opposite end if the spectrum. The same luck that had me standing by the side of the road for an hour waiting for the ride that was supposed to be on time.

That night saw me experience one of the weirdest nights I have ever witnessed.

You have heard of hallucinations. I lived it.

I fell onto bed in a relative's home, near fever, at 9pm. Woke up again at midnight with a full on fever so hot my fingers were steaming. Either that or the deliriums kicked in earlier than I thought.

It was like I was half dreaming, half wide awake, and all crazy. There in my head I had five voices; and each of them kept arguing a different point. For the life of me I cannot remember what each of them had to say; except the last one. It was definitely female, and it kept telling me to go turn the fan on before I set the bed on fire.

I didn’t want to stand up and totter all the way to where the switch was; but eventually I did. And now I think about it, I’m definitely sure. Those five voices? The cast of How I Met Your Mother. And you guessed it right, it was Lily who kept urging me to get a move on.

Those of you tut-tutting about me turning on a fan while having a fever, I have one thing to say to you; I was delirious. So there. Congratulate me for making the walk there and back without tumbling down the stairs someone had seen fit to place there so conveniently.

These voices continued for the rest of the night; I’d fall asleep and wake up at one hour intervals, and these five would always be there, arguing. And I was there, too, somehow, listening in. I think they were trying to make a decision for me. Whatever it was, 8am finally rolled around, and I had to wake up for good.

I sat up, got out of bed, took a step, and fell over. I had just had my taste of Monday’s symptom special; extreme dizziness, with a dash of delirium and tendency to bump into things.

And I was a hundred miles away from home.

The day did not get any better from there on. Thankfully, the fever was down and the sore throat was less, but just like the day before, I was constant wishing that I had the tortures from then than the ones I was suffering from at that moment. Which made me wonder, as delusional as I was: how much worse was it going to get tomorrow???

There was a reason I was staying an extra day there, and just my luck, I couldn’t get that done till noon. Then I staggered all the way to the bus to the main terminal. By the time I was climbing into my homebound bus, the world was literally spinning around me. And mind you, I know I say literally a lot; but this time, it was REAL.

And so there I was, my head feeling like it was stabbed every single time the bus jerked and crawled over speed bumps. The driver took his own sweet time getting there; the thing started moving at 1.40pm but it was 5.30 when I finally stumbled out of it, into the fading sunshine.

Then I had to walk through layers of sifting realities, through people walking upside down in midair and policemen with dogs’ heads and whistles in the shape of bones hanging out of their mouths. The funniest thing of all was that at the time, I didn’t think it was weird at all. Only now as I type this, I’m going “WHAAAT?”, but I’m shrugging and I’m still typing. Maybe I’m slightly better today, but I’m still pretty sick, that's for sure.

And when I finally got home, I fell in front of my laptop and stayed there till roughly 2am, huddled under blankets and watching The Desolation of Smaug for the fifth time. I knew for a fact that I wasn’t going to sleep to well, and I wasn’t too interested in having a repeat of those five voices. 

So there you have it.

The moral of this story, dear reader… if you think you can find a moral, please let me know. All I know is that I’m glad to be back home, where I won’t be alone. Suffering is much easier when you have a laptop with you.

Hey, look, there you go; if you’re ever sick, head for the nearest laptop.

Hah. Nailed it, didn’t I? Yes, still hallucinating slightly, but here’s hoping I make it through this alive.

Yours, Matt Wordweaver