During the flu season, people are islands. A nearby cougher is the village leper, his hacking the metaphorical bell clanging a warning of "unclean!" for all those with an upcoming chemistry exam.
When it comes to sickness, my immune system opts to throw it all back at once like it's last call and goes on sick leave for about a week out of the year. This leaves me violently ill and shut off from society for about six to seven days straight.
Between all the snoughing (my term for when I sneeze and cough at the same time - it happens more than you'd expect), the running out of mucus-less patches of shirt sleeve, and the moaning in public ("I'm going to die! We're all going to die!"), I miss that human contact.
Of course, I don't receive that contact when I'm healthy either, but I'm in such a deluded state that I fool myself into missing experiences I never had. I'm like a baby penguin who is looking forward to the day he can fly to someplace warmer.
At a time when warm contact is needed, sickness instead wins you a different kind of attention: ostracism. For example, sometimes in the middle of class I'll feel a particularly wet snough coming along. A panic sets in. I'm fresh out of tissues, and this one's fixing to spray like whale's blowhole. With no way to brace myself for the impact, I give in and unleash the blast into my hands.
Of course, now I'm left with my palms soaked in liquid disease. I either have to stop taking notes and let my hands air dry, or find some inappropriate surface on which to wipe them off. Both options are equally shameful and disgusting.
The worst part is the abundance of evidence left at the scene. Faking healthy is pretty tough when you're up to your runny nose in tissues, cough drop wrappers and bottles of painkillers.
People know, and they stare. They're vultures, waiting for the sick stray dog to collapse. Every sniffle or blow of the nose turns on average three heads, each person glaring with disgust as if they expect me to ring the tissue out in their mouths.
Luckily, I only have a few days left. Soon I'll be able to rejoin society for another year of people finding health-unrelated excuses to avoid me.
