|
23 Diseases
I woke up yesterday morning feeling like someone had painted my tongue sometime during the night. I went and looked in the bathroom mirror; someone had painted my tongue sometime during the night. A sort of mottled creamy-pink matte finish. Arrrgle. My finger-joints felt achy, my mouth felt like renovations were going on lower down in my throat, and I felt generally not entirely on top of the world. Wonder what the biological warfare people call this one, I thought, making aaah-noises and trying to see my tonsils. Anyway. Message on the answering machine. Nicole, from Sydney. I called her (Optus) and whinged about how terrible I felt. "I know how you feel," she said. "I had the same thing last week. Aching joints, sore throat, itchy eyes," (my eyes started itching as she said this,) "general weakness ..." "I need to lie down for a while." "You'll start coughing later this afternoon." "Great. How did I catch this from you?" She replied in a sing-song voice, "Oh, you know, I gave it to Loki, Loki gave it to Megan, Megan gave it to Mike ..." "and Mike gave it to me. I was wondering where he'd gone." "Well, after the cough passes, you'll get intermittent headaches and dizzy spells ..." "Let me write this down." "and tomorrow, you'll wake up with a strange hankering to listen to early Duran Duran." "O, the humanity!" "It gets better. After that, your overall mass will fluctuate; you'll spend half the day flat out in bed, the other half floating around near the ceiling. After that, general synaesthesia - you see sounds, hear smells, feel colours, that sort of thing ..." "Now that sounds like fun." "Go shopping in that state. It's a lot easier than you'd think." "After that?" She giggled, and murmured conspiratorially, "You feel unbearably horny for about forty-eight hours. It begins to wear off after that, although you might have relapses of the mass fluctuation. Carry some rope around with you if you're going for a walk, and you'll be right as rain in about five days' time. Oh, except for the..." "Except for the what?" She giggled again. "Never mind. I think it's best if you find out for yourself." Click. Ah, damn. |
|
|
( top )
All work on this site is © Nikolai Kingsley unless otherwise stated. |