And here it is: There is a girl – pale, brooding – who gets bitten by a bat – dark, brooding – named Heathcliff that unfortunately carries pneumonia. Heathcliff is a pneumonia-pire and this was likely caused by flying in the rain and living inside a dank church bell but it’s probably also hereditary. The girl, whose name is Malady, would just like to not have pneumonia anymore. Or ever again.
At least it isn’t a mono-pire.
If I do not feel better soon I am going to change my name to whatever the current mildy-alluding-to-the-Renaissance dark horse favourite is for girl names, and take up writing Goth fiction.
“You want me, don’t you, Lola?”
“I can’t breathe.”
“You’re panting.”
“I can’t breathe.”
“I can’t breathe too well either but – hey, what is that?”
“A puffer.”
“Puffer?”
“An inhaler.”
“That’s not sexy.”
“I know.”
“Hello, how are you doing . . . oh shit,” his voice trailed off. “You look like sh – I mean, you’re sick, aren’t you?” I nodded. “I have pneumonia,” I announced flatly, feeling like adding “And I am not long for this world.” He took two large steps backward quickly, almost instantaneously.
“Where’s my Purell?” he half-joked.
I can overcome this feeling, I told myself. It may be sadness but sadness can only exert so much physical influence, only so much – and suddenly I was lurching forward, reaching for the steps in front of me although there was no doubt I would meet them. I was falling fast, but it felt slow and the colours smeared at the edges.
“I think you’re depressed,” my doctor told me, has been telling me for a few weeks. I shook my head “I keep telling you I just can’t breathe,” I panted out. My old friends the fluorescent lights glowed wanly at me. “I can’t – I feel like something heavy is sitting on my chest,” I choked out. He frowned. “Classic, textbook depression.” he folded his arms, looked me up and down. “Why do you keep half-heartedly patting your chest? Sorrow?” I shook my head, again. “I tell you I just can’t – just can’t – ”
When I woke up my face had been commandeered by something they called a ‘nebulizer.’ I saw a new nurse looking at me with pursed lips. “Pneumonia,” she whispered, with a shake of her head, like I was a bad little girl who’d gone out and caught it against all advice, like it was an STD or a baby. I nodded, said ‘whatever’ but the sound was lost to the whirring machine.
I took the deep breaths my doctor requested and focused my attention on a brown spot in the fluorescent light to the left. His brows were furrowed. I think you could even say ‘deeply furrowed’. “How long ago was this – what did you call it?”
“Wintry boating accident?”
“Mm-hmm. ‘Wintry boating accident.’ How long ago was that?” I looked back at the spot. “Years? Few years?” Thinking, of course Just read my chart.
Daycare Chronicles 