The Sickness

The sickness comes not in waves, but in one solitary strike. It creeps in the shadows waiting, tearing, and weakening the defenses, until there is no will left to fight. It’s cunning and calculating. It’s cold and murderous. It cares for nothing save the long awaited anticipation of a full scale war it hopes to win.

It doesn’t really matter what sickness stumbles onto our path. It could be a cold. It could be a fever, or even something we can never rid ourselves of. It could even be the yearly trip to the tax office, as if the IRS hasn’t stripped enough flesh from the bones. It could be some hidden desire that drives the body into irrational decisions. Who knows, and no one cares until the sickness hits.

For the past few days, I’ve battled with some foreign disease that has left me in sweaty sheets one moment and iced air the next. It has fogged my head to the point where I’ve felt that it has taken too much energy to think. My cat can offer no help except to lie on the bed next to me and watch the spectacle resume. That’s when it hit me.

There is much more to the word sickness, than the usual definition. Even when we presume ourselves to be in good hygienic health, we are still sick. It never seems that we are ever proactive enough to protect ourselves from the bacterial world.

It would be great if a mere orange a day would expunge our brain of the hate we hold for another person. It would be great if those cyanide apple seeds could kill off that bile that builds up when we spot something irritating in a friend. It would be better yet if that one stick a gum a day could cure the lusts of the flesh; those lusts that truly bring us to the brink of self-destructive behavior.

Who cares right? We’re not sneezing, coughing, retching, or healing from torn away body parts, which make us “sickness free.” Then again, is it really gone? If so, why is it so easy to walk into a group of negative talkers, listen to the drama and hatred of another person, and then decide to dislike that same said person without out ever meeting them? Seems very similar to a sickness, does it not? Ehh, who am I to say anything, I’m still writing this from the furnace of a body and could possibly, be delusional.