Infectious

I could go my whole life without knowing the texture of it. At least I always hoped so, before fate and improper planning so viciously stole that possibility from me like an unattended laptop in a Silicon Valley ghetto. There I was, fishing it out of the bathtub with my bare hand. The size of a dinner portion chicken finger, complete with several smaller submarine gifts whose birth I witnessed from the most horrifically perfect angle only moments prior. Slick rubber. Rather like a sandblasted garden hose.

So naturally it happened this week. The week some unfeeling strain of flu - oddly enough not the swine variety, given her unique preference for the animal - imprisoned a husband and son to opposite ends of their home from an ailing woman. A week where that same beautiful boy refused any attempts at confinement from the germs, and where any fluids his mother succeeded in keeping down poured out like jungle rain in tears for a lad spending his first two nights apart from her - two full hours from home.

He is away now, leaving nothing more than questions between his parents as to who set the satellite to recording every episode of Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Of course it was the boy, but he is away now. I remain here, worse than alone. God help us all.