I got the flu by d. t. emerson

Flu is grounding, taking the human body down to a level not unlike dying. I know because I was near death once. The flu hits you like the first hill on a roller coaster. Like the grim reaper, it always strikes in the wee hours. In my case, the flu came while I was going to the bathroom. Throbbing chills came on in a sudden shock wave. Unable to stop midstream, I was forced to stand and finish my business in a near convulsive state. Aiming was impossible and outside the scope of my care.

A moan poured out of me as I made my way back to bed where for no less than ten minutes I shook with the covers pulled tightly around my neck. The moaning continued to heave from a spot near my solar plexus, deep and mournful. I feared I may be calling the reaper to my bedside. The covers did little to warm me as the ice water swirled in the marrow of my bones. Visions came: evil waking nightmares passing in a kaleidoscope of nonsensical whims, ancient petroglyphs, laughing clown faces, bright green and red gumdrops spinning in orange-purple cloud vortexes. The shaking subsided. Black silence followed.

I seemed to be connected to all the flus I ever had, in fever time: a place that exists outside of linear time, a place that sits just outside our waking reality. Cocooned in blankets, I knew if I tried to move the ice would return. The slightest movement beckoned chills to return. Breezes coming from the flick of my toe or the wiggle of a hair on my leg would spawn waves in the ice bath stirring inside of me. My breaths were deep, long and stuttered, staccato; I could smell the hot, damp sour of sickness in them. I remained very still for what seemed hours. Time bends, mutates, becomes meaningless during the throes of flu.

Sleep would not come: either that or the veil that normally separates it from waking was too thin to notice. Dreams flashed by. Thirst came, but paralyzed by fear of cold I chose not to quench it. The night lasted forever and it wasn't until a hint of the blueness of dawn came that true sleep came over me; even then, it was fitful and broken. It seemed I thrashed about during that time and I had vague recollections of objects flying around the room and clacking onto the wood floor. Perhaps the reaper had been there tossing things about while he danced to the rhythm of my hot breaths.

Flu victims are time travelers.