He looks at her and thinks: There’s a hostile thing inside her and I’d like to pave its hostile way to Hell. But he gets frustrated, and he gets angry, and finally he doesn’t get any farther than this. If he could, he might be able to help. If anyone at all could, they might usher in a glorious time of no fevers. (As of printing it has not happened.)
Taking her temperature every hour, though she protests and would prefer it if he just felt her forehead and sat beside her holding her hand for a few minutes, also ranks up there as something that’s hard to do. Because the results are inevitably disappointing. “Your temperature’s gone down one-tenth of one degree,” he announces. He squints when he reads the mercury because he believes that will make his work more accurate. In his mind, ‘more accurate’ is still falsely connected to ‘more encouraging’.
The fever shrewdly begins a ledger page of her debts. OWED, he writes on the top.
Because she owes the fever is why she’s in bed. Because she owes the fever and is in bed is why he attends to her needs.
Meanwhile, in our box, the fever stops for no one. It lights on the few significant possessions (a family picture from 1974, a favorite sweater, a trusty television) as if to squawk, This will be mine. This will be mine.
Folk remedies are like this particular cardboard box that contains them and is soaked through with water, its sides on the verge of collapse.
They have no idea, though they wish they did.
I have a good idea and I wish I had none. I wish I were like them, wondering and unsure. I know that the fever will continue for a week more without breaking. At that time, I know their roles will reverse, and then he will have the fever.
When will this fever break? Since they cannot answer this question, they try to substitute other kinds of knowledge. They talk of the effectiveness of medicines and the merits of various active ingredients. She asks him, “What do we do if this thing persists?” He randomly picks up a bottle of medicine in search of a reasonable answer.
Don’t get me wrong, they are both knowledgeable–to a point. What they know between them could fill with small writing the backs of five bottles of medicine. But being able to answer when this fever will break and being able to say with 100% certainty that it’s now time to take the first medicine are two different (and unequal) forms of knowledge.
When will this fever break? Since they’ve done all they can, this is not a time for logic and reason. As such, Logic ducks into the bedroom and says he’s leaving to take a walk around the block. Enter Prayer, haven’t seen him lately. Ten minutes later, Reason throws open one of the windows and climbs down the fire escape. She with the fever and he caring for her aren’t supposed to notice the window open or the drapes billowing into the room to fill the space vacated just moments before by Reason. They’re not supposed to figure out that Reason went to go meet Logic somewhere, and hey, since Logic’s already gone, in absentia, they probably don’t logically put this particular two and two together anyway.
Only later do they think, “That Logic’s sure been gone for a while.” Unfortunately this revelation coincides with the time when she has to take the second medicine.
Much later than all that they’ll notice that the car keys have disappeared.
-Paul Maliszewski
