Revert/regress

When sick, I revert. Not to childhood, but to the latent small-mammal-huddling-in-the-woods that still lives somewhere in my genes.

I get the urge to burrow, to build warm humid dens of blankets and pillows. All I want, when my Eustachian tubes get itchy and my head feels like it's lined with flannel and my glands start to get tender and swollen, is to hide out from the universe, wait out the storm, curl up, cower, comfort. I just want to build a soft bubble, as much to protect others from my sickness as it is to hide inside. 

But I live out here in the plains at the feet of mountains, and the air is crisp and dry like a good cider, or a nice white wine if you like wine. It's hell on my raw nose, makes me aware of my bronchial tubes. I'm a human living in a human house and working a human job, and it's bad manners to listen to the internal little mammal.

I sit neatly on the couch with only one blanket, and drink tea, and dose myself with NyQuil, and accumulate a fine dusting of scrunched up tissues around me, and watch Netflix like the civilized animal I am.