Hotbed of intrigue

I preferred the delirium, to this. I preferred feeling drugged and psychedelic. I preferred it when I could not stay awake for more than an hour at a time without feeling like I was dying.

I am beginning to think again and starting wonder what is wrong with me. Some moments I do feel as though I could die, if I closed my eyes and drifted away that I might not have the strength to come back. I have a stupid romantic notion that this would rather suit me, I wouldn't mind shedding this life one idea at a time. I feel that if that was an option that I would bravely smile and shrug my shoulders. Such is life, I might say but this is all a little unnecessary at this point.

I attempted to walk up the street and buy some dinner tonight. If Grizelda had not been with me I would have fallen into the gutter and waited for rescue. I can't remember ever feeling that walking two blocks was beyond my powers. This is a new and intriguing way to exist. I nearly passed out in the shower getting ready to walk up the street, I stretched to grab my botanical foam and as I turned back towards the water it went dark, I kept turning and my mind slipped loose of its moorings and went into a flat spin, I slammed into the tiled wall at a tilted broken angle clutching my botanical foam. I should have taken this as a warning sign but I didn't. I pulled on clean clothes and carefully, making sure both feet were on each step before stepping down again I went out into the street.

Grizelda chose somewhere to eat and I ordered chicken wonton soup, my mother has been periodically sending messages such as, Eat chicken soup or Are you dead yet? and the endearing If you die can I have that ring? Not today though, no messages today. I have never felt less like eating in my life with the exception of actually being in the act of vomiting I don't think it could have been any harder to eat the fucking soup but eat it I did. I am determined sometimes.

I wish this was a wasting illness where I was both fetchingly pale and delicately skeletal but this is not the case. My hair looks flat and dull, I am quiet and stupid, this is the only indication of illness. Last night on the telephone Elliot ran conversational rings around me until he said "This is no fun. Get better", then he played me a song on his guitar and said he was afraid I might die. Its important to note that I indicated to him that he should say that. He said he aims to please and so is in fear of my mortality.

My understanding of my medical condition is that my immune system has shat itself temporarily. Apart from the lumps and the tidal exhaustion there are few symptoms and I find this disturbing. There is something serious afoot but I cannot lay my hands on it. The street was full of bright beings in their concert going best this evening and I shrank from them wishing heartily for the magical power of making the streets dark and deserted. I felt like a shell shuffling along trying my best first to make it there and then to make it home again. It is possible that this the beginning of a new beginning, it is also possible that is the beginning of the end. I find that I am too ill to mind either way.

I am not capable of fixing on thoughts or ideas. I can't change the sheets, its literally too hard, I can not lift the doona to drag it off the bed. I know that I have an office with work in it across town, a handful of friends, an unfinished manuscript on my desk but these are abstract, arbitrary phantasmagorias. All that exists in this moment is me in my hot bed of blankets with my major malfunction and the dirty pretty sheets.

Comments

Gemnastics said…
you are brave to have even tried. i have been sick like this, and i make people bring me things, and changing the sheets is as distant and abstract as painting the bottom of my foot with melted cheese then travelling to space to leave a cheesy footprint on the moon.

in a delirium this can seem entirely possibly though.
Anonymous said…
Dale,

I got two bouts of this same kind sickness within four months - someone suggested I take a small glass of lemon juice and I'd be right as rain the next morning - it was the ridiculous thing I've ever heard - give me one year in a hut on the mediterranean, some morphine, several crates of expensive wine, a barrel full of cigarettes ... and I'll be right as rain.

Rups xox
DS said…
Maybe I should try asking people to bring me things. It would be nice if someone would bring me some food. I find I am in no condition to cook and I am beginning to tire of Arnott's country cheese biscuits, I thought that could never happen but all things are possible.

Rups I see you prefer the Happy Mondays solution. Very sensible. I will prepare at once for my sojourn.
karen said…
You need broth. Lots of broth. And none of this walking or cleaning or anything. That's why sick people get sponge baths.

What you need is a mother hen to care of you, like Lady Cluck out of Disney's Robin Hood. She could bundle you up in her giant feathery wings, head nestled inbetween her giant chicken breasts.