Sick and Quiet

It wasn’t actually hard – I felt

horrible. It’s actually quite easy

to be quiet when you’re sick.

When your throat is sore

and your nose is stuffed up, and

when it feels like there’s so much

pressure in your head that –

at any second – the grenade could

explode, being quiet is like

a second nature.

Any sound sounds like a detonation

– even the tiniest little whisper. Watching

the pictures swirl and ebb on the tele

makes you dizzy and disoriented… makes

your throbbing head hurt even worse.

So, it’s not hard to be quiet.

It’s so easy to be quiet, in fact,

that you hardly realize that you’ve

gone without talking, and the only

sounds that are heard from your general

direction are the hacking and sniffling

from the plague that you think has

consumed you. People ask if they can get

you anything, and it’s a second nature to

hold the mug out for more tea or the cup

for more water (though the tea makes your

throat feel so much better). Sometimes,

though, the best thing is when momma –

yes, momma… because you’re a poor college

kid who would rather live at home then

share the same bathroom and shower

system with twenty other girls – brings

you a freeze pop. It’s so cold,

the numbing is bliss.

And don’t forget about the

flavor – no… that’s actually

the best part. When you’re lying on

the cough, wallowing in your own

sick, trying not to focus on the moving

pictures in the awesome invention – one

that would otherwise serve as a great

distraction and therefore keep you

just as quiet – the ice tastes like

nothing until –

SLURP-sucka, sucka, sucka – cheesh.

It’s cherry – maybe. Can’t tell with

your nose so epically plugged.

You open your mouth to ask, but

before the croak even leaves, the dull

ache and the burn silence you

twice as fast. It doesn’t really matter

what the flavor is – not having that

crazy pain in the back of your throat

(the one that feels like a painful itch

and clearing it will only make it hurt

worse) isn’t worth finding out if the

pop slowly melting in your hand is

cherry or strawberry or some other

crazy fruit flavor.

It’s rather easy being quiet – the first

set of hours slips away like nothing,

and you don’t even realize that they’re

gone; they’re such ephemeral things.

The second set comes and goes – and

now you’re at the complete day, a whole

24 hours. You take your cold medicine

and suck down more tea and water and

freeze pop syrup (the combination between

the scalding liquid and the numbing liquid is

… interesting to say the least, and you

don’t even care when you burn your

tongue.) and try to ignore the aching

in your head while you force yourself to

watch whatever crappy movie is on.

There’s nothing else to really when

you’re sick. But you have to admit

that you feel sorry for the dog – the poor,

old dog on the screen who didn’t

deserve to die. The zombies, however,

are a nice touch, and you pity the

poor kids that had to play in the

movie – they probably won’t sleep

for a month. Buh-bye, Gary. Looser.

Dumb kids, opening the gate to Hell,

you think – can’t help yourself but think.

So early in the morning –

or so late at night – there’s nothing on,

and you want to go to sleep, but you

can’t breathe through your nose,

and breathing through your mouth

hurts. Time becomes such a crazy

thing – it seems almost as fake as

the movie you’re watching – which,

by the by, gives a whole new meaning

to stick a needle in your eye. There’s no

one around to talk to, even if you wanted

to talk. The movies are so bad that they

actually hold your attention .

When someone is awake, you thrust

the mug you want filled in their

general direction, and they’ll

fill it for you. You only need to

nod you thanks and sniffle a whole

bunch to remind them that you’re

sick. They won’t mind if you don’t

ask. And who really cares about

what kind of tea they put in the mug?

You can’t really taste it anyway;

you’re only in it for the scalding in

your throat – another form of pain to

drown out the other. That one is

perhaps more unbearable

then the burned tongue and gullet.

But being so quiet – it lets you

think. You have yourself for

conversation, and sometimes

you find yourself to be quite the

horrid conversationalist. “Did I really just

think that?” you think to yourself,

because you know it you say it out loud

one of the people around you is

going to want to know the

original thought. And the original thought

is just too stupid to dare voice

aloud. So you write it off to being

sick and keep quiet, knowing

(hoping) that the inanity will pass.

Being quiet is easy if you’re sick. What point

is there in talking anyway? It will just

bring you more pain and make you feel

just as bad if not worse. The only thing you

want to know – and you write yourself a

note on this, because this is important…

at least in your cold-medicine induced haze

– where the hell are the kids’ parents?

And how freaking mad will they

be when they come home?! And, dammit,

even though I’m happy for it, how the freak did

the dog come back to life?! It was dead before

the kids opened the gate to hell! Some

things, you decide, are best for momma to explain.