03.12.2009 - 12:42 a.m.

It is my third time in the bathtub today, each more pitiful than the last. In the morning, before I'd erroneously dragged myself to work, I'd showered, standing, like normal people do, even if I was making noises more like a zombie. By afternoon, I was trying to shower, and failing; I ended up crouched in the corner of the tub, shivering despite the near-scalding water pelting me, trying desperately to breathe enough steam to save my throat.

This time, I have not tried to shower. I have wrestled the bent drain cover into place, and I am crumpled in the tub, half-hoping the water will drown me. I have given up. I am not blowing, or hacking, or hawking any more. I let the snot trail out at whatever speed it is going to. I will wash it off my face when it is done and not when I am. I let my eyes fall closed in their aching sockets, not even trying to see. The misery is here to stay, so I am just going to sit in it.

With my eyes closed, I feel my fevered shivers like waves, up and down with each new inch the water touches. I lay back once it's filled enough to cover me; the shivering subsides. I crack my eyes just enough to turn off the tap with my toes, as the faucet is too far away to consider reaching by hand; the muscles in my thigh and calf stand out as they flex. It occurs to me, as if in revelation, that I still like my leg. This is not my body's fault.

And I can breathe like this, even easily, through both nostrils for the first time all day. My eyes are warm but not in pain. I don't even have a tickle of a cough. As I lay there, a drop of sweat finds its way out of my hair and into the groove between my jaw and my neck. It feels good on my skin. I focus all of my awareness on this one coldwarm drop, sliding down in fits and starts, pausing over my collarbone, then trailing its way over my pecs and down between my breasts to join the bathwater.

I can still feel good things.

This story may yet end with me asleep.

-stonebridge

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