we all fall down

They say you should write about what you know. I don’t know much, hence recent posts on blue glass, paper people and lost gloves. But this week inspiration took a turn for the worse and left me struggling under the weight of a common cold.

I’m under a spell cast by a cartoon wizard - my bones have turned to rubber. I wobble and bounce from moment to moment - none having much impact on me and vice versa.

It’s wrong to have a cold in the summer. The clue is in the name. I need to feel the risk of freezing. I need to laid my burning forehead against frosty surfaces. I need to feel as if I have been cryogenically suspended for a few days, and that when I thaw it might be spring.

Familiar foods have changed and grown corners. Even the roundest mouthful has edges and sharps that I never saw before, all eager to tear my throat on the way down.

My eyes water when there’s nothing to be sad about while my nose is filled with pepper tipped pins. And so I sneeze. And sneeze. And each time I do, I swear I lose precious thoughts. Words and phrases lost forever to high powered exhalation.