24th
98.6
Fever fits me like a favorite, worn-in blanket. Normally my body temperature rests at one and a quarter/ one half degrees below normal (in inverse proportion to my height, which alternately slouches and stands at 5’6” 1/4/1/2) so that a spring breeze can chill my naturally good temper and a sheet at night becomes my best ally in the full thickness of a summer heat wave.
The sickness is not named for the first couple of hours where it sets up house in the nasal cavity, now arrested on a neural passageway, rounding the corner to the left eye alone where it threatens to petrify my gaze into Cyclopean ill-will. I take no notice though — for now I am just looking around, ready to seal the deal with that perfect, jaunty wink.
The onset of the sickness is a manic depressive’s balancing act, elatedly exhausted. A down jacket billows around my waist on a 30 degree winter day - pinafore-like - with each strut-swagger of my hips.
I look at boys who are looking back through curtained eyes soaked with fever.
If the movie is bad I can close my eyes and sink into a titillating montage of dreams. If the post-cinematic coddling at the cafe is worse then I will just cradle my chin and wineglass until my head rests unbecomingly on a zebra-patterned table.
I am the sick girl, after all, and allowances have to be made for the sick.
“…It’s ok; she’s just feeling sick…” “She is not well…” “She is just resting….”
And there is no awkwardness at all until the conversation trickles by incoherently with its dull coherence and a childhood dog is reanimated by just two hairline fractures on the ceiling.
The boys are not looking back now. Only the waiter, each of us mildly terrified.
