Evolution of tool use...by d. t. emerson

My legs were the first to act. They rolled off the side of the bed taking my upper body with them in an almost rodeo-like move. I rose from the bed in a roar of dispassionate vivacity, half in a dream, mostly in regret for not finishing that dream though I couldn't remember it nor why I missed a psychotic, nighttime brain play. As dreams faded, shuffling steps carried me to the daily first stop: the bathroom.

The eyes had already been hard at work guiding me from bedside to toilet-side so nimbly that I took their art for granted. They washed themselves with invisible blinks focusing on the dim world; weaving together a million tiny camera shots into a movie.

The lungs, so friendly, doing their job of filtering cubic feet of gas to aerate my blood; left and right working together in perfect unison. They sustained me without question.

It was time for my hands and fingers to play the days first dexterous role. I used my fingers to guide my bladder emptying device in the right direction...not a difficult task to hit an 18 inch wide porcelain receptacle but slightly challenging in the semi-conscious state of early morning. Next, I used same hands in nimbly pulling up my pajamas. Then, one finger automatically scratched my eye. I went from floor porcelain to wall porcelain and turned the tap with right hand, then together right and left hand artistically sculpted a sweet smelling froth from a bar of soap which cleansed and freshened the dark quiet of early morning.

My full body was starting to awaken as the damp, earthy smell of coffee put its stamp on my brain. The olfactory is so close to the brain; a shame it's such weak sense in humans but a driving one nonetheless. Robot state of awakening was dissolving.

Shuffling still...my feet, hands and fingers guided by my crusty yet moist morning eyes managed to fulfill my wish for a cup of hot coffee. My lips savored it; the fumes helped to warm and soften the air that breathed life into my lungs. The hot fumes of the coffee tickled the flakes in the corner of my eyes and I rubbed them clean. A hair, a fleck of skin, a dandruff chunk an eyelash fell from me here and there, like leaves from a fall tree. My brew was becoming a part of me; certainly these things that flew about had mixed into the liquid.

After just a few sips of caffeine, my mind was turning, churning while my body all the while was taking steady care: breaths in and out, heart steady and strong, yawn refreshing oxygen, blinks moistening eyes. Meanwhile, brain wandered into the dark places of other peoples thoughts, of dreams I can't have, of "why can't I be happy?". It took such a different path than eyes, lungs and heart. How does this dark force of mind work unlike my feet and hands and try to upset me, knock me off my balance and keep me in a spin? This organ does not work like the rest! Surely if I heeded it's whims I would run into the street in front of a car and end this pain of life. Yet while it churns and boils, it orchestrates the coffee sips and oatmeal bites and leaves yet enough space to conjure up scenarios of certain disappointment, fear or even death.

The brain is my enemy until I use it as my feet and hands to sustain me. Better to let my hands, feet and lungs take care. Mind them instead.

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.