Ira rolled over and nearly ended up flat on the floor.
“Fuck,” he rasped. His throat felt like he’d swallowed shards of glass.
He felt like crap. Not even warmed-over crap. Stale, nasty crap. He was cold and stiff. His head felt like someone had tried to stuff it with cotton, and his eyeballs were scratchy and swollen to twice their usual size. At least that’s what it seemed like.
Struggling to his feet and wrapping a blanket over his shoulders like a cape, Ira stumbled across the main room to his tiny kitchen. He didn’t know what he wanted, and as he considered that, he realized his throat was too sore to swallow solid food. Maybe tea or something.
He scrabbled around in the cabinet trying to find something herbal and healthy. He found a box of green tea. Ick. Another of orange pekoe, whatever the fuck that was. The mere scent made his stomach roil.
Finally he opened and heated a can of soup from the back of the cabinet. He’d had to check the “best by” date on the can, since he didn’t remember buying it and the thing could very well have been left by the previous owners. The entire operation took too long; his hands were shaky by the end of it, and even the smell of the vegetable soup was unappetizing.
He stared at the liquid. It had a weird sheen on the surface. His stomach curled up in a little ball and hid in a corner of his body. Nope. Turning the burner off, Ira left the soup on the stove. He’d toss it out later.
It occurred to him that using the bathroom sounded like a good plan. As he shuffled that direction, his shoulder bumped the wall. God, he felt awful.
When he was done in the bathroom, his ugly beige plaid couch looked like paradise. He slumped back onto it, wrapping his blankets as tightly around himself as he could. If he figured out who had given him this cold or flu or whatever the fuck it was, they were going to die a slow and painful death.
Ira sneezed, and his nose started to run.
Fuck his life. He grabbed a tissue.
A few hours later, Ira calculated by the change in ambient light, he’d blown his nose so many times it was rubbed raw. He wanted nothing more than to sleep, but his entire body hurt, even his hair follicles. He was existing in a half-waking state filled with weird dreams. He couldn’t focus enough to read and didn’t own a TV, so there was no distracting himself from his condition.
The landline rang. Even if he hadn’t had Ebola or whatever it was, Ira wouldn’t have answered. He’d activated the line purely for emergencies, choosing to keep the number unlisted. The call was most likely for the longtime Skagit resident who’d owned the number before him.
The phone rang again, echoing in the quiet room and startling Ira out of a dream about riding his bicycle that somehow morphed into him making espresso at the Booking Room while completely naked. He reached for the handset on instinct, grinding out a raspy “What?” before he remembered no one he knew had the number. He hung up again without waiting to hear who it was.
Huddling back into the couch, Ira pulled the covers over his head and shut his eyes. He didn’t care if he lived or died; he only wanted to rest. He’d been steeping in misery for at least a couple days since coming home Friday night and collapsing on the couch. He actually wasn’t sure how long he’d been sick, although he had remembered to call work and tell them he wasn’t coming in.
He slipped into a dream about Rachael. It was the offshoot of a dream he’d had for years leading up to their separation and subsequent divorce. They were at a family party, a gathering at one of the family’s favorite Italian restaurants, Guido’s or Joey’s. Probably owned by one of Rachael’s cousins, anyway.
He and Rachael were sitting at opposite ends of an impossibly long table, surrounded by dinner guests. A strange man was sitting next to Ira. He couldn’t see the person and didn’t know who it was; when he tried to look at the man, his head was always turned the other way.
A hand kept slipping onto his thigh. It was Rachael’s hand, Ira knew, but she was too far away, and then when he looked down he realized he was naked. Then somehow he was in the Booking Room kitchen, still naked, trying to prep for the lunch rush, except he needed to get dressed and the dishwasher was broken, spewing water all over the floor and walls.
Ira tried to open his eyes. If anything, he felt worse than he had before. What day was it?
He didn’t know.
Everything was cold. Ira shivered and felt around on the floor for his headphones. Maybe if he listened to an audio book he would be able to ignore his aches and pains. When the narrator’s deep, sexy voice began a retelling of Ira’s current favorite novel, he focused on the voice and drifted off again into a half-sleeping state.