After realizing that I was not going to “shake off” whatever horrible sickness I woke up with yesterday, I called it quits at work around 11:30 and dragged my tired, aching body onto 2 trains and down 2 city blocks to make my way back home. And almost instantly, after stripping out of my work clothes into PJs, and actually putting away said work things, I crawled into bed, where I stayed from 1:30 p.m. until 10 a.m. the next morning.
I spent most of the time asleep, or somewhere in between awake and dreaming, understanding that time was passing, but not really able to make much sense of it. I was in the thick of a fever, one that rose from 99 to 101.5 in a couple of hours. It was funny to watch D’s face as he took my temperature, especially because he initially thought I was “milking it.” Had I been more myself, I probably would have felt more vindicated when I saw that startled look in his eyes as he read the triple digits on the thermometer.
I don’t really remember any of my fever dreams, aside from knowing they happened. I woke myself up a few times, moaning and talking in my sleep, but even then, the dreams had already become fragmented memories, lost before there was even a proper chance to remember them. Places, faces, conversations… all of it slipped away.
The reality of those 15 hours didn’t become apparent until today, before I stepped into the shower, when D pointed out the scratches/cuts on my back.
“How did this happen?”
“Excellent question…”
I examined the marks in the mirror, unsure of how they got there, but certain I knew when it happened.
The bottom line? The mind is a funny thing and the way that it handles/processes things (such as the physical manifestations of a half-day worth of fever dreams) will never cease to amaze me…