Fable (on hiatsu)

25. Sick

I got a cold.

And I swear I will blame this cold on those four for the rest of my life. You may be wondering why I'm taking this so seriously. I don't really know how to explain that any other way than tossing you these facts about me. Consider this a bit like an information dump.

I have only gotten sick ten times in the sixteen years of my life.

I hadn't had a cold for five years (a very important time, which I will tell you nothing about for the moment and simply let you hang there).

When I get a cold, I See way more of the weak spirits than I usually do.

Weak spirits are about as common as air. So I feel like I'm suffocating in a full room, no matter where I go, when I'm sick.

The weak spirits love trying to make me laugh by pulling horribly funny faces at the most random times (those times are often really, really badly timed).

People think I become delirious when I sick. Sometimes I wonder if that's the case, as well.

And so, my friends were the first to experience the disaster that is Me when I'm sick. I've gotta say, I feel kind of bad for making them go through all that. (Toby just asked me if I really feel that way. Nah. It just sounds good.)

On with the actual events then! I woke up with a stuffy nose and blurry eyes. Like every morning, really. Toby rolled over on the mattress next to me and his hand smacked my face. Well for a wakeup call, it certainly wasn't very nice! I swore vaguely at him and pushed his arm off.

Sitting up, I tried to take hold of my surroundings. For some reason, I couldn't. I rubbed my eyes, thinking that was the reason everything was blurry. Looked again. Rubbed my eyes. Looked around again.

Okay, so the world had been downloaded into 'Blurry Photo' quality this morning. Question was: why? Staring blankly at the blurriness, I started to notice faces and vague forms bobbing through it. A pair of round eyes stared back at mine. My heartbeat went up.

Oh, nonononono. Not those ones!

With an expression of horror, I sat up and focused on each and every of the semi-transparent creatures. This, of course, was an impossible task. But it helped me adjust my eyes so I could see through them better. Then my mind caught up with the reason I was seeing them in the first place.

Oh noes. I'm sick again...

Right around then. my head started to feel like a lead weight and I plopped back onto the pillow. Moving my arms to my forehead felt as if I was trying to manipulate advanced technology I only partially comprehended. The world swirled this way and that, probably helped by the fact that all sorts of the bobble-like creatures were crowding up so they could watch me watch them.

With a kind of ecstatic energy, they gave each other turns staring at me. I watched back, my eyelids barely held open. They were oogling at me, making funny faces I didn't have enough energy to laugh at. Ugh, this is what it feels like to be low on Life energy.

An eternity later, Toby got up to go to the washroom. He trod on Jo's back by accident and said a slurred "S'rry..." before slamming into the walls eight or nine times. He wandered across the hall trying to find the washroom that was now right behind him. I tried to warn him that he was headed towards Sophie's room, but I couldn't open my mouth.

Well, it was his fault if he ended up terrified for life, was my selfish thought before he stumbled through Sophie's door.

Unsurprisingly, my elder sister had been watching one of her newest horror movies in the pitch darkness of her room, before we would all get up and eat breakfast. So Toby turned on the lights by reflex and was jolted awake by the huge demon poster that hung on the wall opposite the door. He turned to flee and met eyes with a startled Sophie. Now I know that Toby has a thing for Sophie (he calls her the prettiest girl at school), but he hasn't ever actually seen the real her.

School Sophie and Home Sophie are two very different people. School Sophie is friendly, open and sociable. Home Sophie lurks in the dark corners of rooms, adores to scare her family by live re-enactments of her favourite scenes (usually the moment when everyone is about to be killed) and passes all her free time exercising and learning new combat techniques. Then testing them out on me.

And so a startled yelp was the last I heard of Toby for the forty minutes it took for her movie to end. He came back crying and shivering.

"Craft, she made me watch "The Ring".... And she made me put on these surround sound ear buds and turned off the lights and she was cackling like a witch when I tried not to look and she turned up the sound when people were getting killed! IT WAS HORRIBLE!!!" He then collapsed in a sobbing heap on his mattress.

Scarred for life.

RIP, Tobias Free who thought he could survive anything.

Onto other matter, then. Jo had woken when Toby had oh-so-kindly stomped on his back. He got up and gave me a strange look. He could tell I was awake, but he frowned at what I looked like. At was around then that Toby yelped in fear and was taken to the depths of hell.

"Are you okay, Craft? You usually get up pretty early."

"Yes, I do. But not when I'm sick. I can barely see what colour the walls are, let alone walk somewhere!" was what I wanted to say. What actually came out was more like "Yzzdo, bunozik. An'arly zy olour wlz re, eta'one walk zomere!"

 "I think I can quite confidently say I didn't understand anything but the word 'walk' in all that," Jo said calmly.

No, of course you wouldn't! Ugh. My hands were plopped on my forehead, where I'd left them in an attempt to get my temperature. I lifted on and sort of pointed at myself.

"'m zic." I said, as clearly as I could. Jo frowned. Getting impatient I repeated. "M zic!"

"Uhm. You want music?" I glared at him and repeated.

"M! ZIC!"

"I don't understand!" He lifted his hands in exasperation. The little semi-transparent beings floated around him in quiet laughs, like a personal joke.

"ZIC. Mezik!" I simplified, then realised that 'Me sick' sounds a lot more like 'music' than 'I'm sick'. Darn it all.

My mom walked into the room just after Jo gave me another desperate look. She was as tall as me, but she always left her tangled brown hair down. She wore a ruffled red T-shirt and light gray sweat pants. She had a mug of coffee in one hand.

"Morning, boys. Had a long night, too?" So she'd done another all-nighter. "What's going on?"

"Toby was trapped by Sophie when he went looking for the washroom and I'm trying to understand what Craft's saying." Jo clarified.

"Huh. I pity your friend," she turned to me," How long until she finishes her movie?"

I glanced at her watch, reading the time upside down. I held out four fingers. Mom grimaced.

"Poor boy, forty minutes of horror left. So, what was Craft trying to say?" She asked Jo. He looked confused.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out, Ma'am."

"M'ZIC!" I cried out.

"Oh. You're sick?" She had gotten it right. "Wow, last time that happened you were eleven. How bad is it? One being the worse yet and five being the easiest."

I thought for a second. Well, it was a horrid fever, but I'd gotten a few worse ones. Namely the one five years ago. I don't think anything could beat that. I'd say it was third-to-worse. I held up three fingers. Then ten. Then three again.

Jo looked mystified. But Mom just nodded. "Third worse huh? I'll get the stuff."