I felt sick to my stomach for weeks. It was uncomfortable and heavy. I could not eat more than a few bites of food at a time. It did not feel like it had any place to go when I swallowed, and when I swallowed it felt dry. People wondered what was wrong with me, but I told them it was ok, that I was going to eat later.
I started to slow down, I had no energy. It hurt to lay in bed so I would sit low in a chair, with my back curved in the seat. I read books and looked out the window. The sparrows were busy. They were light and quick and full of air. I did not know what was wrong with me. My body felt sour.
More weeks passed and it got worse. I felt like a sack packed full of something. And dry. I coughed once in front of a friend and dust came out, a fine cloud that fell out of the air quickly. I took a drink to get the dust out of my mouth and I could not stop drinking. I began to drink unusual amounts of water. It helped. The only food I could eat was grapes and watermelon, because they were moist and I could swallow them. I set newspaper down on the floor and ate watermelons with my bare hands. I was hungry and thirsty and I could not wait.
And then it stopped. I did not cough any more. I felt full. I drank water. I felt alive. My skin started to change, it became paler, or greenish. There were veins and textures that were not there before, but I felt good. It became easier to walk without the feeling of weight at the bottom of my stomach. It was fullness. I was walking through a park when I started coughing again. Something was stuck in my throat and it would not come. I fell to my hands and knees trying to coax it through. I took a deep breath and finally heaved it out. There was something like a thread in my throat attached to a broad leaf I held between my lips.
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© 2006 Damion Armentrout. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.