The Cold - part 2

(A sorry saga continued from Part 1)

By staying at home and remaining mostly very still, you fool yourself into thinking you're feeling ok, getting better in fact. And you can't stay at home all day, you have obligations, a promise to keep. You're actually feeling pretty good after the long hot shower–being clean always helps–so you try going outside into the world.

It hurts. You walk face-first - whack - into your wall. The light is too bright, the cold wind, too cold and windy. And when you turn the corner into the sun, it's too hot and you struggle to get your jacket off as the sweat just pours down your back. The footpath is too hard under your feet, the distance from the car park too, too far.

And that's when the coughing starts. Oh joy, a new symptom, you think. Sarcasm is the only kind of humour you can manage–though you're not laughing, you're getting pretty bored with it all in fact.

Through your blocked ears the exterior sounds are muffled and remote, further distancing you, as you realise how vital are your five senses to keeping you connected to the world. No-one can share this with you. All these people in the street, healthy, clear headed, on the other side of your murky wall, have no idea how you feel. Nor can you remember what it feels like to be them.

It's taken over your brain. You struggle to remember what it was you had to buy. Oranges. You need vitamin C. It's almost a surprise that you can manage to remember where to buy them from. But it will be no surprise that when you get home later, you'll forget and leave them in the boot of the car.

But the shopping comes later, right now you have the flyers you promised to hand out. When you volunteered for this you romantically imagined sociable commuters approaching you with held-out hands, smiling at you as they walked away, reading the flyer with interest and joy. Some of them even stop to chat about what a great thing this rally will be, what an important job the aid organizations are doing. There are rainbows in the sky, summer birds twittering and children skipping and laughing...... in your optimistic imaginary version.

On the long walk from the car to the mall you realise the truth. You wonder at what point you will have the guts to start offering the flyers to people. Instead, you let them walk past, kept at a distance by the ringing pressure in your head.

When you decide on a good spot in the mall you try your first person. They grunt or shake their head – or was that actually a snarl? – and keep walking, shrugging their shoulders away from you as if you're hideous. After several more rejections, you tell yourself to smile and not take it personally. You try to ignore the quickly dawning realisation that not everyone is as concerned about this issue as you think they should be. Which is surprising, as it will affect us all–and soon.

But you might as well be that irritating bible basher with leaflets about god the almighty saviour. Oh my god. That is how they see you. You watch the crowd. Their faces are closed. Their body language says 'No'. From a distance they see a person holding flyers and swerve away. Another nutter with a stupid cause.

That you're sick really isn't helping. You probably look miserable and that smile isn't fooling anyone. You can't help thinking about that online game you played, where every time your avatar sneezed, particles of virus sprayed through the crowd, infecting and slaying all the little people on the screen. You can see your own germs now, spreading from your fingers onto the flyers, from the flyers onto the hands of the innocent people who take them from you, and from their hands into their noses, lungs and brains. There is a certain amount of guilt attached to this. It isn't making your task any easier.

A couple of people respond well. They smile. One guy even slows down to tell you, 'Oh yeah, I already know about it, I'll be there', and your mood is buoyed for a few seconds. But really, you're either preaching to the converted, or epically failing to connect with the rest.

...the self-pity continues in Part 3...