Wednesday Morning, Nine AM (Lathers)

Headache this morning.  Tylenol.  It’s worse.  Than what?  Than most headaches.  I rarely get a headache, how would I know?  Head, shoulders, knees, and toes.  I know this is bad.  The worst?  No, the worst was when I had a migraine, one time in my life, and I called the doctor, and he said, you are having a MIGRAINE, I will call in a PRESCRIPTION.  Doctor my eyes.  Itchy, from the cat.  After all these years I’m allergic to her.  Or is it a symptom?  Headache is a symptom.  I didn’t sleep enough.  Ten hours; enough.  I slept too much.  My nose is running.  On empty, not.  Over my upper lip.  Tissue.  Another Tylenol.  It’s okay to take two, even though it’s EXTRA STRENGTH.  Runny nose is not on the list.  Why not?  It should be.  Wait, that would make two symptoms.  Sore throat.  Three?  Slight.  Change in weather?  One day it’s sixty-five; the next it’s forty-one.  And the seasons they go round and round.  And there’s no accounting for temperatures at night.  Because the night.  Forced air.  Once, I had RADIATORS, but that was back in the day.  Those were the days.  My friend. Throat connected to nose connected to ears.  Dem bones.  I have an earache.  Well, sort of.  Never put your finger in your ear.  After today, that is.  Not clogged.  I will never put my finger in (that) ear again.  Do your ears hang low.  Headache.  Dehydration?  Water.  If I drink water in the evening I’m up all night peeing.  I’m working from home so I’m already peeing all day long.  One roll left!  None at Marc’s.  None at Heinen’s.  I should have hoarded when it was fashionable.  Always late to the party.  You walked into the party.  Drink, rehydrate.  Don’t even consider using tissues, THEY DON’T DISINTEGRATE.  Why the hell not?  I use the kind with no aloe, no lotion, I have never (knowingly) BOUGHT PUFFS.  Flush it if I have to.  How dry I am, how wet I’ll be.  Another Tylenol?  Not a good idea.  I spent a year in Africa--I bless the rains— and took malaria pills.  Oh, that was ten years ago.  And I threw the rest out, nine years ago.  They were the wrong kind, anyway. Will COFFEE make it worse?  I had some dreams there were clouds.  Oatmeal.  I learned to love oatmeal in my fifties.  Why does it look like PASTY BOOGERS when you’re seven but is (much) better than sex when you’re fifty?  I’m fifty-nine.  No underlying condition, but I’m a mere four months shy of sixty.  That’s the cutoff.  Over sixty, old man look at my life I’m a lot like you.  Under sixty, you’ll live forever.  I’m on the razor’s edge.  Aren’t I.  I’m talking to myself.  Out loud.  If I have this thing, I’ll die alone.  I’m scared.

Marie Lathers is an empty nester who loves living alone in general but sometimes freaks out. She teaches literature at Case Western Reserve University and is working on a middle-grade novel about Watergate and a verse novel about Joan of Arc.  She has published pieces in Slow Trains, Rehoboth Beach Reads, Flash Fiction Magazine, and the collection Soap Opera Confidential, among other venues.