One-Hit Kinetics

I used to be bothered by big dreams and high expectations. Not anymore...

For me, a good day now is any day I don't have to retrieve a username and password. What a great day.

        —Tom Papa

I took the day off to rest. I expect to be out tomorrow too. Our American culture says, "Keep going. Power through. Be productive. You're not sick if you can stand." Foolish. I learned over the pandemic to take rest at the first sign of illness. That usually nips a bug in the bud. Most of the time.

I've got something. A bug. Three cups of coffee, and I'm dozing off. My muscles are stiff and sore. My sinuses are hot, irritated, and clotting. I have some nausea. A headache. I'm running hot. Not quite a fever. I have a dull pang on the right side of my abdomen. Sometimes it switches to the left. All my symptoms are slight. Very minor. So far.

There's no way to know for sure where I got it. I blame the woman from the drugstore. She must've got someone sick with all her coughing. Why not me? It feels like mild flu. Two days is about the right incubation time for the flu. My story will be that a woman coughed on me and gave me the flu. I can't prove it.

The mailman gave me four at-home COVID tests. I'll use one. Or I'll misread the instructions and wind up using two. The test says no COVID today. Take another nap. Try again tomorrow.

P.S. Only just now, I discovered searching Google with virology terms will get you flagged for suspiciousness and breach of TOS until you solve a CAPTCHA. This is the world we've made for ourselves. Zamyatin gloats in Thiais.