I’m Home, You’re Home, See You Later

I think I’ve figured it out now, more or less. Whenever I catch a cold, I start showing symptoms the day before. I wake up to the unpleasant electronic sound of my alarm, and my throat feels awful, and it stings to swallow my saliva. Using my phone’s flashlight, I light up the far end of my throat in front of the bathroom mirror. The red interior of a person is as dark as magma. My throat’s irritated — it’s acting up — but the fog drifting in my mind is in soft focus, dense, and nebulous. I retrieve an Omron thermometer from the back of my drawer and place it under my armpit. The metal tip feels cold for a second, and then it beeps. I check my temperature and immediately realize I have a mild fever.

I let out a noise as I gargle, just as an emergency response. I face up and go, “Ahhh.” Gravity pulls the tap water down, and my breath fights against it. I imagine the water dancing in my mouth as I continue gargling, and I start laughing as I listen to the echoing sound of my voice in the bathroom. The water shoots into the wrong place when I’m being careless. I cough. My irritated throat won’t get better with a few rinses. My hope always gets crushed.

Both of my parents have always worked. Even if I missed school after one of them called my homeroom teacher to tell them I had caught a cold, my parents wouldn’t look after me unless I was seriously sick. That became the norm before I knew it. I’ve never been lonely—I mean, I’m an only child, so I’ve always spent time alone, even without missing school.

As I lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling, I hear the school bell from my elementary school, ten seconds away on foot. Huh, I guess it’s recess now. But I’m not there on the playground, now filling up with noise. What would’ve happened if I were there? I wonder how that class went? I think about how the friends I often talk to have probably expanded on a topic and moved on without me, and I’m overcome with frustration. I’m tormented by the claustrophobic feeling of being tied to my bed and the anxiety of being left behind. I’m tired of sleeping. I don’t like how I’ve grown accustomed to the temperature of my skin and futon. I want the surface of the futon to stay cold. Once I start thinking about these things nervously and relentlessly, sleeping becomes even more challenging. But I have no choice but to lie down. When I look to the side, the warp and weft of the curtain fabric and the alien bumps on the wallpaper become all too clear. The mechanical nature of the second hand of the clock in my room becomes unbearable, but there’s nothing I can do about it. The daylight shines through the cracks in the curtains with no consideration for anyone and illuminates the room.

I’m just lying around, that’s all. I can’t believe how tired I get just from getting up for the bathroom. It’s probably because I’ve been sleeping for a long time. My brain’s sense of equilibrium is broken. The wooden floor feels soft, or rather, it’s as though the soles of my feet have become soft; I stumble from my wobbliness. Would my blood circulation be okay if I slept all day like this? When I think about my blood, I can’t help but imagine a slightly viscous liquid reaching my toes, fingertips, and even the smallest of my blood vessels. I’m instantly struck by an unshakable itchiness, as if dozens of thin, long insects are slithering in the back of my head, being entangled with one another.

Oh, how the ceiling doesn’t have a care in the world. I give up and exclaim, “Ugh, this sucks.” Hold on a minute. That feels good. Let me try it again. I picture adjusting the volume by twisting a knob with my fingers; clockwise, counterclockwise, and clockwise again. Gradually louder, gradually quieter. This is fun: the peaks and valleys of my exclamations, the sonic wavelengths producing different tempos. I twist another knob and imagine applying a vibrato effect on my voice, and I start feeling silly and giddy despite myself, or rather, because of myself. I let myself go and talk about things that have been bothering me lately: “Hey, about that thing.” I report on my situation like, “I’m bored to death” and “I’ve been sleeping all day since this morning.” A laugh escapes my mouth.

I try imitating the narration at the end of a 30-minute anime episode, which concludes what happened. “So-and-so wanted to sleep forever and ever. The end.” As I say my thoughts out loud instead of just thinking them, I suddenly feel like I’m viewing myself and the present from a macro perspective. How intriguing. “If this were any other day, it would almost be time for cram school. But here I am sleeping.” “I went to look inside the refrigerator and returned without doing anything.” I narrate the list of things that are happening to me in a matter-of-fact manner. My speech seems to peel away and detach from me, even though I’m talking about myself. A strange rush accompanies it.

My fatigue had disappeared before I knew it. That dire sensation I felt staring at the ceiling, and my thoughts in overdrive had already cooled down. The seriousness of the situation floats away from my body and head, like a balloon, and goes somewhere else.

As a young elementary school student, I learned that speaking out loud was good for my body. Saying whatever I wanted felt invigorating. No one picks up my words, and it’s not like I get wrapped up in an automatic cycle where I hit a tennis ball against a wall, and it bounces back immediately. I’ve never played golf before, but this verbal act is like hitting a golf ball and watching it soar on a nice field on a sunny day. With that said, numbers related to distance and notions of improvement and competition are irrelevant to someone in bed with a cold. It’s solitude with a sense of liberation. If you hit a physical ball, it’ll roll somewhere and remain in place unless someone picks it up. But the sounds you make with your throat aren’t tangible. What a relief.

This is how I see it: using words with someone else is fun, no doubt, but they’re not some shabby toy that can’t stand alone without two people. Were words born for the sole purpose of exchange, like for conversations, dialogue, texts, and emails? I don’t think so. I can’t bring myself to believe that words are a toy that can only exist when there are more than two people. You can use words by yourself or toss them. They don’t leave a trace, and no one is around to listen; they disappear without becoming a memory. I feel an affinity to such words—they make me want to snuggle up to them—as they don’t get angry even if you use them that way. They forgive you.

Let me catch a cold. Wait, no, I don’t have to. “ Well, then.” “I walked home today.” “I’m going to bed earlier than usual.” Alone, I feel a burst of energy as I monotonously say words that have no destination.