Monologue

I am considering contracting a horrible disease tomorrow. I was thinking maybe Polio; is Polio contagious? It just won’t work if I don’t actually catch it; it is so unromantic to be afflicted by a disease that has lain dormant in oneself for a long time. It is as if one were hiding something. Truly, a genetic disease seems simply dishonest---but a caught disease, oh there is revelry. And it's so much more attractive, isn't it? The gothic moonlit face of the consumption; the saucy blush of scarlet fever. That is romance. But best---there is a marvelous story in the catching.

But of course, like all marvellous stories, there needs some setting. Indeed a setting of some sort that brings out the intricacies and the romance of it all. Should I catch it from a stranger, or should I catch it from a lover? Oh poor me! All these choices! What ought I to do? Which should I pick? Maybe I should have a most terrific fall, and in the fall, I hit the ground slowly but surely, and scrap myself on a horrible piece of nail which just happened to have the remnants of scarlet fever. No, no, no, these all seems a little too convenient; there has to be something better.

Or I can take a little trip down to one of those Asian countries, maybe like a place in Hong Kong, where they had the recent SARS outbreak. What animal transmitted that again? Oh right, civet cats. Aren't they sweet darlings, those civet cats? No wait, civet cats are not cats; what's wrong with me now? Oh bother, bother me---I'm not longer thinking too straight here.

Could it be, that I'm already having a horrible disease now? But that's hardly fair! I wanted to contract a horrible disease tomorrow, not now, so what's going on? My marbles, where are my marbles? I knew that they were supposed to be here somewhere; where are they now?

(Originally from X-peri Mental Writings, now defunct. First published 14 Jul 2008 04:25:00)