Roadkill Flu

For the one or two of you that may be wondering where I've been for the past week, here's the scoop. I'm sick.

Sick, sick, sick. Sick like a dog. Sick like Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France for the 94th year in a row. Sick like, well, those people that leak phlegm and goo out of every bodily orifice and can't stand up without a small symphony booming out the 1812 Overture, in stereo, all through their cranial cavity.

But this is no common cold. No, I am patient zero for what will undoubtably become one of the most devastating pandemics ever known to humankind - Roadkill Flu.

See, about three weeks ago I encountered a bloody, flattened hunk of what vaguely resembled a raccoon on my daily walk home. Aside from the momentary shock of having my tranquil fall vista disturbed by what I can only guess was raccoon spleen, I really wasn't too put out. I mean, likely the roadkill authorities or McDonalds or whatever municipal department was responsible for disposing of rotting animal flesh would be along in the middle of the night to sweep him or her up. The whole bloody mess would be gone by morning.

My, how charmingly naive I was back then. The next day, the dead raccoon was still there, a little flatter and a little worse-for-wear (were those peck marks, I wondered?) but still quite unabashedly dead. Same thing the day after that. By the fourth day, I had taken to crossing the street lest I be accidentally clipped by the swooping buzzards that would congregate around the poor little guy. And on and on, with no end in sight.

(As a brief aside, stranger and stranger things have started showing up on my road - a dismantled shopping cart, the plumbing from a bathroom sink, and a pair of black boxers. As a shout-out to you literary types, I feel like I'm in a Thomas Pynchon novel.)

Anyhoo, by week two, Pancake and I (that's what I've started to affectionately name him - well, with about as much affection as one can safely show a decomposing hunk of fur and meat) had started to bond. His or her unmoving presence was the only constant for me in this turbulent, ever-changing world. I would routinely shout a jovial "Hello, Pancake!" as I walked to school, kicking away buzzards and vultures and ravens as I walked. When I came home on day thirteen and one of Pancakes paws had somehow become detached, I held a small vigil.

Had I only known then that delirium was the first symptom of Roadkill Flu, I would have sought prompt medical attention. But no, I persisted. Now, for the past two weeks I've been racked with the following symptoms - runny nose, sore sinuses, occasional headaches, fatigue, baggy eyes, sore throat in the morning, perpetual whininess, a relentless and violent need for MORE. CHICKEN. SOUP. NOW!, and a voice that sounds like Eddie Vedder trimmed his vocal chords with rusty barbed wire.

I fear I have only days, nay, hours left in this world. Please remember me. Compose a sonnet, preferable Petrarchian, in my memory. And when I am gone, scatter my ashes over the Irish Sea, where the bonny breezes will always blow.

And please, someone, for the love of god nuke the bloody municipal authorities who have no fucking clue what they're doing in this plague-infested hellhole. Love,

-T.