flaming jewels

Sickbed

Suddenly, I felt sick.

The dragon sent me to bed. Told me to take off my trousers and climb in. He held back the covers.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked.

"No," I said quietly.

He stroked the hair back from my forehead and left, returning with a tall glass of water and some medicine.

"Take this," he said.

I did.

He got up and said, "I'll leave the door open, so I can hear you if you call."

"No," I said. "Close it."

He did and we both smiled. A closed door between us would not make any difference. We could always hear each other when we needed to.

I lay very still, the back of my wrist pressed to my forehead. It seemed to help the fuzzy pain gnawing at the corners of my mind.

Around me, the animals settled in the darkening room.

At my feet, the restive dog turned once, twice, three times and settled with a grunt. He didn't lay next to my feet, but on them. He always had to be touching me. That dog loved to lie on my feet.

When something passed too near the house (a car, a bike, a noisy child) he would raise his head and growl low in his throat. Protective, always. And when he perceived that the threat had passed, he rested his head on my shins again and grunted.

He was the bad dog, the antisocial one, the fear-biter. He was hard to love, so the dragon and I loved him. We cared for him all the more because no one else would. And if he bit me, I always forgave him because I knew he didn't mean it.

Curled at my left side, his head resting on my stomach was the good dog. The sweet one. The dog that was easy to love because he was all warmth and blinky eyes. He slept all the time. But when he was alarmed or afraid he could bark loud enough to make my ears ring.

Now, however, he was resting with me on the sickbed. Warm and comforting, his head a pleasant weight on my ribs. He twitched in fitful puppy-dreams, gave muffled barks and beat his tail softly on the pillow.

On my chest was the queen cat. The one who demanded attention, but lavished affection in return. She settled there, right on my breastbone, purring. Her chin almost touched my chin. She liked to be as close as possible. I think she would've crawled inside my mouth, if she could have. I could feel her sweet cat-breath tickling my lips and nose. As she dozed on me her head would droop, droop, droop until her chin touched my face. After the briefest contact she would raise her head and start the process over: droop, purr, droop, purr...

She drooled.

Off to one side, still close but not touching was the funny gray tabby. The krazy cat. The stray. The one who was always a little "different." She loved to rub against me, but only when it suited her. Now was not that time. Instead, she lay about a foot away from me, collapsed into a gray puddle. Sloe-eyed she stared at me. I could hear her rusty-motor purr.

Close, close.

So I lay there on my sickbed, wrist pressed to my forehead, dealing with the pain. The room slowly darkened. My stomach twisted in knots. I breathed shallowly.

The contact of the animals was soothing. A live thing, itself. I could feel their love and trust pouring into me, around me. Warm, heavy. Sweet and steady the way only animal affection can be.

The fear-biter. The slow dog. The queen cat. The krazy one.

And the dragon outside the door. I felt him, too. I could sense his scaly black tail wound protectively around the house. I heard him rumble and puff, turning the pages of his book. I felt his beam of love. He felt my wavy-sick thoughts.

I smelled his smoke, could taste the claret wine in his mouth. The soft piano music he listened to drifted in under the door and danced along the crest of my wave-pain.

I gazed solemnly at the walls, the ceiling. The light was such that everything was a uniform gray. Like snow on the TV. Like static made solid. It was as if things lost their cohesiveness and I could see the gray molecules scooting back and forth across faded boundaries.

Yes, everything was gray. And heavy.

Gray as the krazy cat.

Even her eyes were gray, now.

Passing headlights briefly turned the Venetian blinds blue.

The fear-biter rumbled in his throat.

My eyes and my thoughts drifted, heavy and slow.

I felt the piano notes tickling my forehead and my wrist.

I was at peace with my pain. One with the gray, the sound and the light. Molecules moving, all the boundaries breached...

The animals somehow shifted closer without seeming to.

The queen cat drooled on my chin.

I lay there for an hour or two, until the gray in the corners faded to black.

Then, unable to stand the soothing animal-heat anymore, I got up and padded out to the dragon, blinking in the suddenness of the light.

"Better?" he asked.

"Better." I replied.

And I was. Until I tried to eat the toast and tea he fixed for me. Violently ill again, I was packed off to the sickbed, the smell of burnt toast lingering in my nose...

jewel@gleeful.com
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