I consider myself a healthy person. Throughout much of my twenties and early thirties I almost never got sick. Then Baby Harbat was born and began trawling the seas of preschool bacteria to bring home every sickness possible in rapid succession. You’d think having gone through that already I’d be toughened up a bit, but this winter I’ve been steadily sick since early December. It hasn’t been one single illness but a train of them, linked up with a few hours or a day of clean health in between. Just as I finished a three-week bronchitis in January I got the stomach flu. Then I got two days’ break and got a sinus infection which has lasted all week.
[ominous music] Is this winter different from others? Why are so many kids out of school? Is it personal experience that has me wondering if this is the start of something you see in the movies. At first people are polite, sniffling and muttering about the usual winter cold. Then the classrooms are unusually vacant. Workplaces are empty, tissue sales rise, and the populace is slowly reduced to snuffling, shuffling, staggering drones. Wait, am I confusing pandemic movies with zombie movies? How different are they, really?
When I finally get better it’ll feel like I’m recovering from hibernation, not having been at full capacity for two months and counting. Then it’ll be springtime and I can dance in fields of flowers and…and…achoo!
Writer, architect, father, husband.