Sharp knives of light and energy penetrate every pore on my scalp. Underneath the daggers plays a constant hum. It does not pulsate. It does not waiver. It is a steady overall explosion of my brain in technicolor.
The winding of a baseball bat behind my head. Hands, clown hands, grip the bat. My mouth opens in surprise wide. I watch. How when the clown is behind me? I don’t know.
I realize and know and anticipate the release, and I smile. A big clown smile without lipstick. I don’t do lipstick.
The batter swings fast and hard. Bright lights explode behind my eyes. It feels good.
Cartoons before the show starts? Sure.
And the show starts—dark and menacing scenes and stories. I am not a fan of horror or violence. But I keep watching it. I don’t know how to turn off my mind’s projector. And I don’t know if I could if I would. There is a common theme. Anger, rage, and in the end, a dark-haired woman points a gun at me and shoots, point-blank. I am okay with that. But then a new movie starts. The film quality is outstanding. Probably shot with a RED. And the edits! I envy the editor’s skills. And there was sound too. Good, Dolby sound. And amazing foley. Really. But the important thing was the storylines. They were engaging. I remember that, but I can’t remember any of them now.
And through the fever, pain, aches, chills, vomiting, nausea, coughing, and diarrhea, COVID took my brain, sifted out the last 62 years, and revealed me. “Well, hello there. Been awhile. You going to stick around this time or drown in your remaining years?”
I sit up prostrate in bed. I don’t know where I am, but I am drenched in water. My sheets are wet. My comfy pj’s are drenched. My blankets are heavy. My pillow is soaked. My hair is soppy. I raise my arms to pull off my shirt, and the body odor knocks me out. Seriously. I get out of bed, and the air-conditioned cool air feels…so nice. That in itself is weird after freezing under blankets for days.
I am sleeping in the guest room. My husband, Chris, is in our room suffering from the same virus. He has had it longer. That tells you something. I literally crawl upstairs to find dry clothes mumbling. “I hate this house.” It is actually a beautiful house. We’ve been here for 20 years. Chris has done impressive things to it. I don’t know why, but I hate it. Have I always hated it? To be honest, yes. That will hurt his feelings. Stop it. You count too. Your truth matters too. Want another hit in the head?
“Pam, I woke up drenched. I used some towels to dry off. Sorry.” Our bath towels lay at the foot of the bed. I put on some dry clothes and butt slide down the stairs back to the guest room.
I don’t know if I should take more acetaminophen. I do. I shouldn’t have. I discover the rinse and repeat effect over the next several hours. Nausea starts, followed by a bathroom run, then chills, and aches, a cough, and shallow breathing. I haven’t eaten much in days. Everything I eat lingers in my mouth. I try a banana, an apple, a Dr. Pepper. The after taste is revolting. I try to replace it with yogurt, sour apple hard candy, and water. Water is a glorious thing.
Precartoons. The bat lines up. Another head explosion with bright lights. The movies start, and I am once again profoundly engaged in storylines I can’t remember. Always, in the end, the point-blank shot.
I am convinced that the COVID bats live in my body. They eat everything in the dark cave of my empty stomach. They hang together on my scarred lungs, happy as little hairy bats in a warm moist cave could be. I hate them. I think that is what I smell. They leave their feces and urine in my brain. They scavenge my thoughts. I am officially insane. At least I have my never-ending movies. No popcorn.
I wake Sunday morning. I can walk upright, sort of, to the bathroom, which I do quickly. I am sitting on the toilet, door open, cause really, why not? I am looking up the small staircase to a floor’s eye view of the front room. I think to myself, “How pretty, it looks like an abstract water feature on the dark wood. The sunlight is amazing! Look how the light and shadows reflect and shimmer like in the early morning at the lake. But my front room is not a lake. It is a pond.