Cough
February 24, 2011 in C
It’s ‘nothing to worry about’, but I do.
A colleague, conspicuously absent on Monday, arrives in the office Tuesday, coughing. A hacking, phlegmatic bark that says ‘get out of me, gunk’ and actively helps by way of the glottal stops that stop and stop, words not forming, just ‘huck’ and ‘huck’ and ‘cough’ and ‘cough.’
11 desks lined up, 5 on one side of the room, 6 on the other. Mine directly opposite, we sit back to back separated by only a small conference table, maybe a metre between us, probably less.
She comments to a colleague that she was sick enough to stay home yesterday, but will ‘get through’ today. My skin crawls. The psychosomatic tingles fill my glands as my throat begins to dry. Just a mild bout of hypochondria, I reason.
The office has no windows. Well, it does, but they don’t open. The air conditioner brings in fresh air, but it’s cooler today, so the unconditioned air hangs in a cloud, propelled over by tussis-fuelled aspiration, over my head.
She comments to a colleague that she was probably sick enough to stay home today but will ‘get through’. My skin crawls and my throat tingles. No, no, just the hypochondria again.
It’s nothing to worry about, but I really do.
I couldn’t get up this morning, the hypochondria was running riot. I thought about ‘getting through’ but decided to go to the doctor instead. He told me not to go to work.
“You wouldn’t want your colleagues to catch it, would you? How inconsiderate.”
.