Of Fog and Flem

Woke up this morning in a wet blanket of fog. I thought it was just because I had overslept. But the fog wouldn't lift. It filled my nose and lungs, my head with air and popping sounds. I kept moving through it, high-stepping over it, trying to step out of it, cross through to the other side of wellness. But it wouldn't dress off, wouldn't wash off, wouldn't drink off, the sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea no substitute for the real thing. Much thought about what's real last night. I thought it was just that thought-fog keeping up with me. But no. It was real. It was penetrating and dulling my sinuses. Filling me up with something else besides my own petty self and this silly heart, something impenetrable and lasting for the moment it takes to fill me with this gritty crispness, a fragile skin of today, brittle and thin. Where I was merely melting, dissolving at the mouth and eyes and breath, today I'm dry, a sec sac of air, a full bladder of hot numbness in the brain.

I call in sick right before class. As the flu creeps in with little rat's feet.