Nothing. I Got Nothing.

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT. At least that was how it felt to me. While it was comfortably warm and calm outside inside my body it was “Batten down the hatches, and furl your sails!”

I was sick.

On Friday I felt relatively well and spry for a man of my age, but by Friday night I was feeling a bit off kilter. I was sneezing and had no appetite. For me that is a rare occurrence. I began to fear that something ugly was afoot.

As was usual on Saturday morning, and most other days, I got up, tied my bootlaces and headed off to St. Arbucks for coffee and to write. I went, but apparently I left my brain at home on the kitchen table. I stared at the blank page in my notebook and the longer I stared the more blank it became.

Nothing. I got nothing.

I downed my meds, sucked up my coffee, and just sat there for an hour.

Nothing.

Eventually, some of the Usual Suspects drifted in and I put the notebook away in defeat. I carried my brainless self over to our Play Group Corner.

Nothing. I got nothing.

It seemed that my powers of conversation were at home too, sitting on the table next to my brain.

As all of this was happening, or not happening, I began to feel my general alertness start to fade. I excused myself and drove home. That was it until Monday morning.

The rest of Saturday appeared on schedule, but I was going into reverse. I began to sneeze again and my sinuses turned into the “Dancing Waters Show” from one of the Las Vegas Casinos. I don’t know where all of that fluid was coming from. Despite some opinions my head was only so big. I was running through the Kleenex at a record clip.

At one point I thought that, maybe, I should eat something – for medicinal purposes. Frozen Mexican food was not a good choice. I did force it down my throat, but it didn’t stay there long. I was now Officially Sick.

I had plopped my body into the Rip Van Winkle Memorial Chair and I began to fitfully move between sneezing and trips to the Euphemism. After my fifth dash up the stairs I became completely hollow, having passed all of my internal organs.

Nothing. I got nothing.

There was no doubt that I presented a lovely sight collapsed in that chair with balled up Kleenex all around me. To her credit, my wife, the lovely and microbially tolerant, Dawn, suggested that I should just give up and go to bed. It was about 8:30 PM. I do remember crawling up the stairs.

Sleep? It was more like a coma. I didn’t move until 9 AM the next morning. I hadn’t even made my two traditional trips to the loo during the night –at least not to my knowledge. My brain was still perched in the kitchen.

As Sunday progressed so did I. I begged off from going out for Sunday Brunch. That wasn’t going to happen for me. I stayed home and slept some more. By 4 PM I bobbed back to the surface of conscious life and, wonder of wonders, I felt better. I was even hungry for the first time in living memory. I ate. It wasn’t much. It had no taste, but it stayed with me.

At a little after 9 PM I went back to bed. I was on the mend. I knew that because I woke up at 4 AM, wide awake, and watched a terrible Robert Mitchum movie (Note: There is no entertainment value in any film starring Robert Mitchum and Jan Michael Vincent, no matter what time of day it is.)

And now it is Monday morning and I am back in the saddle. My body feels like I spent the weekend as a tackling dummy for the Chicago Bears. Everything aches, but that isn’t far from normal.

 

Today when I looked at that blank page in my notebook all I could think to say was, “Nothing. I got nothing.”

And you just read it. 

I’m sorry.

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