Warning Signs

there are those moments when you can just feel that something isn't quite right. the feeling often arrives in the late afternoon or into the evening. you've been feeling fine all week, but you can't ignore those little hints that you'll be sick by this same time tomorrow.

maybe your eyes are a little itchy, or your throat is starting to tense up. your voice is absent of any kind of rasp or whisper right now, but there is a clear threat of a desertion within the next few days. a peculiar sensation registers in the hitherto unknown sensory receptors of your nose that tells you that you'll be giving up your sense of smell in exchange for being completely stuffed up by the time you wake up the next morning. ¿how does your nose know this? you can feel all these little half-symptoms and precursors of what will rise up as a full blown menace the next day, and you know that there's nothing you can do about it. you'll try the home remedies. you'll take some medicine in advance. you'll sleep just fine tonight, but you'll wake up tired and sick.

i wish there were some sense of purpose to these warning signs. it's not like a traffic cop giving you a warning to slow down or you'll pay the consequences. instead, it's the broad, evil grin of a practical joker who has completely cracked and they're looking at you straight in the eye. you know that no matter how many times you check under your bed, behind the doors, or in the closet, you will eventually "find" the "surprise" and you won't like it. something evil is lurking, and the event is non-negotiable. about all these warnings do for me is extend the suffering by adding a sense of inevitable doom. ¿why does being sick have to taunt you like that?

just the other night, i could tell something was coming on. i could hardly sit still. my hands were all fidgety, and i couldn't concentrate on anything. i couldn't think straight, with the same thoughts going over and over in my head. i'd have to keep a foot wiggling or something like that in order to get a few things done. rocking myself back and forth, i knew i was done for. it was going to be a full blown case of autism by morning.