They were only subtle signs.

Last night. Momentary maxillofacial symptoms, then one sided nasal congestion. Hard to name how or why, seeing as the four plus hours just spent over two days working in my own yard and on the sidewalk beside my house hardly qualified as social immersion. No fever; just breathing restriction. Popped a squirt of HP in the ears and Budesonide in each nostril, and went back to bed. Had taken my most recent dose of IVM the previous Thursday.

The next morning, after a starkly sleepless night (anxiety…nasal steroid…) I pushed through two and a half hours of carotid and veinous ultrasound, flat on my back. The tech had taken the vax but had also had covid, a year ago; so, though we both masked, he wasn’t a concern. The pharynx was still irritated, and I was in denial.

Upon arriving home, pacing a little, I stared at the packet of meds which had been my prophylaxis of choice for the past five months. Did a quick cheese toast, and took two more IVM pills. Within an hour, did I feel better?

Outside, to continue tackling my newest manic creative project, the backyard renovation. Some children new to the neighborhood had set a small fire on my grass. I was inspired.

Thirty minutes and, back inside, to eat, and socially mediate those I had offended, a daily occurrence anymore. By 8:30pm, my body had finished with this charade; it was time to get twelve hours of uninterrupted, deeply deprived REM. But, was the pharynx getting raw again, and why was the house cold?

After a few choice Messenger sign offs, I slept.

Two hours.

Awake now, in a rush a bowl of gnocchi and one apple crisp to the oven. Did I have Delta? From whom, exactly? The dull witted unmasked millennial walking by who didn’t have the energy to lift my overfull bins to upright? Did I touch them, after he did? Had I bent down one too many times to scrape at the sidewalk traveled daily by dog walkers, mailmen, children, strange loners…all unmasked, many spitting on the pavement in some slumtown ritual of territorial dominance…?

The headline tonight, splayed across CNN, declared that Canada and Mexico will throw open their borders once again, come November. To the, well, you already know. To the vaccinated.

I’m not. Don’t ask. But now, fighting back against this pestery, lowgrade, hallmarking set of Delta encroaching symptoms, wondering how many days I’ll get and whether I’ll be spared the dreaded loss of life’s last pure pleasure, the taste of food…….I know my next soapbox. It’s all laid out, crisply painted, fresh and ready:

Since when on either this Earth or in my lifetime did a needle ever trump the human body’s natural immunity, AT THE BORDER?! How can Americans NOT be allowed to exchange their commerce and creative drive with Toronto or Mexico City, lest they take a SHOT?!

As usual, I’ll remain silent – acquiescent; compliant; obedient. NOT.

Since when did a robust immune system, able to fight off with a hardly noticeable 48 hours of infection, get punished at the state line for failing to secure a rubber stamp to the forehead? Just what is so wrong with this picture, and who are the puny holdouts still refusing to say so, aloud?

The lines will form. There are always several – one for cars; one for trucks; one for those waved over to relinquish the contents of their seam-bursting hatchbacks.

I’ll be in the one carrying the signs.

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©10/11/21 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. Sharing by blog link, exclusively. Thank you for respecting the writer.

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