Did you know that sometimes after being sick for a long period of time, you can get the opposite of a fever? If you've never had a low body temperature and experienced what it's like, imagine the same symptoms you have with a regular fever. But everything feels like an after-image, like you're a few frames behind yourself, and you're so heavy. Lifting your arm feels like gravity is more against you than usual, like it's got a grudge.
Earlier this year, I fell ill for 19 days straight and exhausted everything I had. Towards the end of my ridiculously slow recovery I had the misfortune of experiencing this phenomenon for 24 hours, where my thermometer kept reading between 94 and 95 degrees.
After taking the worst "hot" shower I'd ever had, I crawled into bed, blankets fresh from the dryer, and tried to sleep. The constant shivering had made me so sore that no matter how comfortable I tried to get, my body felt like a wet bag of sand. We were supposed to get snow that night, and the cold was already starting to creep across our floors and into the sheets with me. It felt like I was going to freeze through and through, no matter how many hot blankets my husband kept piling on top of me.
He got me to agree to a doctor visit if my temperature wasn't up by morning. I'm not very fond of going to the doctor. I don't have anything against healthcare professionals, but the entire process stresses me from beginning to end. If I can avoid going, I will.
It could be sepsis, he'd said, scrolling nervously through his phone.
I was starting to feel better, I'd protested.
What I hate about sickness and disease and such is the rawness of it. How out of control we are, how we really are at the mercy of cells and what they've got going on in there. What are they thinking? Are they as cold as me? I think the reminder that I'm an animal and not some untouchable entity will always be harrowing.
Whenever I feel really terrible, I do what most people do and take my mind elsewhere. In this moment, I took myself to a beautiful landscape.
Quiet neighborhoods were glittering atop rolling hills, all scattered around a glowing town nestled at the center. I was far away though, in a field. No matter how much I wanted to imagine warmth, the sun had already dipped below the horizon in this scene. So even here I was still shivering. I tried to walk through the grass, but I covered no real distance. I have to stay here tonight.
That's the last thing I really remember before sleeping about 10-12 hours. When I woke up that morning, I was still cold and dazed, but the heaviness was gone. My body temperature had returned to a normal range. Phew. I've evaded you once again, Doc.
We still had a few months of winter left, and any comforts I'd once enjoyed from a moody, cloudy day was gone. I felt like I could never really get out of that grassy field until mid-spring, when the cold was finally back up on the mountain tops and out of my skin.
This was when I started working on 'Algid Evening.' I needed to put this place somewhere else other than my mind, so I did - but only on the hottest of days.