Story Break
Fevered Fuzzy Delusions
What's vinyl and looks demented?
There is a certain structure to being sick. It is a process, a journey, a transformation.
First you feel odd but push on. To be sick is inconvenient, and you don't have the time to waste, or patience to spare. You have a life, plans, things to do, a schedule.
Later you feel less tentatively odd and more seriously pained. Reality becomes fuzzy, and you are not so sure you still understand exactly the point of it, or how to navigate around obstacles, like furniture, for example. Still, things aren't unpleasant enough to cause more than a slowdown. You decide you can ignore the pulsing aches.
Then there is that stage when it becomes clear that you are no longer in charge, and possibly no longer even human.
You realize that you are going through something, the way a small animal goes through a large one after the hunt. No matter where you are, it's too hot, too stuffy, too drafty, too cold, too humid, too dry, too loud, too quiet, and you can't get comfortable no matter what you try.
You hope it's all over by morning.
The next day, of course, it isn't, and that is when you realize that there are two possible outcomes. And only two.
One is a pained, endlessly drawn out semi-existence from which you never recover, one barely worthy of being called life, wherein you lie in the dim region between barely conscious consciousness and just enough more consciousness that you can actually feel how evilly vile you are.
Or the other option.
Which is a throbbing, wasting slow death that will first reduce you to a sweat-soaked wad of whimpering covered by intensely aching skin, plagued by creaking tender joints, and topped by a mat of filthy stinking hair. Your body, such as it is, will still pulse feebly inside the bedclothes, but only feebly. This situation will then get much, much worse before you are ultimately pulled, helplessly, in your agony, down that long dark chute into extinction, and you will not be able to sleep, even for a moment, because of the fever, the headache, the chills, the pain. Which will all torture you without surcease.
So, in the meanwhile, you think about things.
Important things left undone, dangling like stray threads.
How life once seemed worth the living of it.
What you could have done with yourself if only you'd been paying attention, and changed direction when you could.
But each of your eyeballs hurts. Every inch of your skin hurts. Every joint, likewise. You are too exhausted to do anything but hurt.
And the next day you don't need to think anymore because, though it might still be possible to do so, it really doesn't matter by then. You no longer think about getting better so you can once again go out the front door and have a nice walk in the sunshine.
If you could think about that, actually, you would not be able to remember how it feels. You might get a flickering image of it, like perceiving a faint faded sepia blot on a piece of yellowed paper, a discolored blur that was once a photograph.
But you wouldn't care.
Doings like that are part of another universe now, another universe that is a strange, quaint, and wholly improbable place no longer of any relevance to you.
Because.
Because life itself is pain, and even your pains have pains. And they are all fighting, one with another, for the honor of putting a painful end to you, painfully, accompanied by an orchestra of pain, playing its painful soundtrack.
So now you do only two things.
One is to intermittently regain consciousness, and you have no control over that.
The other is to open one eye whenever, by accident, you do happen to regain consciousness.
If you open that eye and see darkness, then it is night, and you realize that you have made it through another day. If you open that eye and see light, then it is day, and you know you have made it through another night. That is all.
Either way you understand, dimly, that you are still alive, and you would curse your fate if you could, because your entire world is aches wrapped in pains simmering in fevers and sweats.
It is exactly at times like this that you comprehend how lucky you are to have a pet, if you have the right pet.
You don't want to stagger out of your bed after a week lost in the screaming wilds of semi-existence to find that your small furry friend, left alone in its cage, has eaten itself in a desperate attempt to defeat starvation while you were out of your mind.
So you don't want a pocket pet.
You don't want to be lying in bed, barely able to stand the anguish of breathing, to have some galumphing, 180-decibel, 75-pound, arfing beast come and jump on you, slobber on your face, joyous that you feel wonderful great too, and can't wait to go outside for a romp around the yard together.
No dogs either.
What you do want is a cat.
Given a large bowl of dry food and a reasonable amount of water, a cat can remain satisfied, sleek, and plump for weeks before it even considers a gentle, tentative nibble on an unguarded part of your body, and even then, if it decides it has to devour you to survive, it will do so while you are asleep, so you won't know what's happening.
Cats have tact.
If a cat is bored, it sleeps. When a cat awakes it goes for a quick nip of food, a sip of water, and then resumes its normal catatonic state on the sofa. (Where did you think that word originally came from?)
While dogs are like loud, stupid drinking buddies drooling on your shoulder and vomiting into your lap, cats are like lovers. They provide discreet comfort, are circumspect, self-effacing, quiet, and clean. They truly appreciate your affection, and will eat you only if desperate.
They know when to disappear, and somehow they always reappear just when a person needs a bit of reassurance and unconditional acceptance, if that person is deserving of it, and has pre-qualified.
Cats are, however, not universally available, and they have their own quirks.
Like, for example, the way a cat may come by to help you greet the new day. Cats are always alert somehow, and when the cat of the house knows that you are awakening in the morning, or should be, it may well drop in to help you readjust to daylight, sounds, sensations, and to regain your bearings within the the world of the living.
You have to watch out for this.
The cat may only, if you are lying on your side, stick its nose into your ear and purr. This of course sounds like it must be exceedingly cheery and agreeable, lovably cute even. It of course is not. Unless you really do want to be deafened in one ear by something unpleasantly fuzzy and wet which feels like it is attempting to get at your brain through the side door.
Yes, and speaking of doors we have the other thing.
Say that you are not on your side but are on your back, and the cat hops up there on your chest all thrilled and delighted to see you awake once again (and therefore available to haul down some chow). And then, the next you know, the cat is doing that thing that cats inexplicably do, and has actually turned away from you, so you are facing the cat's secondary weapons area (opposite the end with the teeth).
Of course you learn how to deal with this. A quick puff of air directed from your lips right at the bullseye gets the cat to give a smart hop and throws off its aim, saving you once again, but you learn this trick only after you learn why you need to learn it. And it is not an easy way to learn, though your first lesson, once completed, will last a lifetime.
Like this.
Say the cat is on your chest, facing your toes, and in order to maintain environmental equilibrium, must release a small but highly caustic jet of digestively-generated gases. Well, my friend, it takes very little of this to gain one's attention quite smartly, and how it works might be something like the following.
You are there, and the cat is in position only inches away, as noted. And then critically, you are also breathing in. If you weren't breathing in you'd only need to fear for your eyesight and a minor loss of eyebrows and some mostly superfluous epidermis in the target area. But if you are breathing in when the cat's jet shoots out you will, by reflex, inhale a quick gasp. Just once, ever in your life, and you will never forget it.
And even if you could force yourself to think about it later you could never think up a way to wash out your lungs, if it ever happened again, which it won't. A small but quick Phhhht!, a gasp, and there you are, both lungs awash in it, and no way to clean them or trade them in on a fresh pair or anything. You are done for.
So you learn, if the cat ever, ever again turns the artillery in your direction, to hold your breath, pucker, and give said cat a short, sharp blast in the butt.
But what if you can't have a pet at all? Not even a cat?
Then I would suggest getting a sister.
Luckily, I have one. Even more luckily, she's the smart one, and recently sent me something.
Which is CAT-IN-A-CAN. In order to defeat the possibility of stress-inducing uncertainty on the part of the reader, I'll jump right to the point. This is an inflatable, and reusable plastic cat in a can. Even the can is reusable and resealable. It says so on the can, so even I am unable to forget it.
The other side of the can says INGREDIENTS: Expandable Calico Cat. And APPROVED BY: The Inflatable Pet Association. And, in a final hug of reassurance: Easy And Convenient Storage.
Given how difficult it is to get the average cat into a can half the size of a coffee mug, I hereby proclaim this a triumph. (Not that I've tried, you understand. You know, live stuffing. I'm allergic to claws and teeth and so on being embedded in my face, hands, arms. And so on.)
The only time I've ever known my sister to be wrong about anything was when she wrote the note that accompanied my very own plastic pal. "Everyone needs a pet," she said. "This one can stay alone when you're hiking. It doesn't eat much."
Well, of course I wouldn't expect it to eat, and although I could puff it up and stick it in the kitchen window to watch with bated (i.e., no) breath for my return every time I went backpacking, it struck me that CAT-IN-A-CAN could come along.
TBear, my most favorite ever plush pal and long-time backpacking companion, is getting a bit scruffy and smells bad, doesn't deflate, and is hefty for his size, all things considered. Not so great any more to have as my camping snuggle-buddy.
Squeaky Frog was OK, before TBear, and it was fun to sit around in the dusk and talk after supper, squeezing him every time I needed to hear a whistle of agreement with one of my more subtle arguments, but he was made of a sort of rubber after all, eventually experienced stress fatigue, and his arm fell off. No more squeaking then. He was simply unable to maintain the requisite pressure and so his squeaky-hole ceased to function.
Plus he couldn't salute properly after that either, so I set him on fire and turned him loose on a piece of bark down the river one evening. Bye, old friend.
CAT-IN-A-CAN seems promising. I can carry CAT-IN-A-CAN in a pocket by day, and set it up, inflated, by night, to guard against snuffling, creeping mousies and other such vermin.
CAT-IN-A-CAN is very light, washable, and brightly colored, but sadly without a squeaky hole. Maybe I can learn to throw my voice, and that might do it. Learn just enough to get by. I like conversation, and there's nothing like a squeak or chirp or croak (or meow) of approbation every now and then to encourage a person and cheer the spirits, especially when you are out there all alone. And I don't have many other friends.
I'll get back to you soon. I need to do some testing. Soon, then. I'll get back to you on it. Soon.
P.S. If you get an inflatable cat, don't lick it. Real cats are bad enough.