Monday 17 October 2011

Freewheelin' in India - Day 16: The Sickest Sickness

The fan wasn’t spinning, but my head was, distinct lack of drinking water making me feel instantly dehydrated in our sweltering sauna of a bedroom. I spoke to the nice manager guy who told me they’re building a direct train to Pushkar, and therefore shut off the city’s electricity for five hours EVERY DAY! Could you imagine that shit flying in England. The second Facebook becomes inaccessible there’d be more office window divers than 9/11.

I grabbed a burrito for brunch at ‘Out of the Blue’ restaurant, who explained that the power cuts also cut down their menu. I offed the first bottle of water before the waiter could even put it on the table, ordering another and left feeling satisfied but still shitty. Within about ten minutes of looking at little stores in the stifling mid-day heat, my head got weary and my stomach turned. I turned to Sarah saying I needed to shift, then shot down a street to shoot sick near my shoes. It was only a little bile at first, but after my third attempt to carry on shopping I’d completely lost my lunch to some lucky roaming cow with bad taste.

I went back to the room where my insides were all rushing to escape me, like my body was the Titanic, and any drop of fluid was a pauper without a life-raft. As I burst in towards the toilet I projectile vomited so hard that it hit the water from five feet away, and splashed back, hitting me in the face as I tried and failed to control my body, which now belonged to something else entirely.

I persuaded Sarah to go and do her thing as I didn’t want her to miss out because of my inability to move, and by the time she’d returned I’d taken a turn for the worse. Much worse. I laid there completely delirious and unable to get comfortable, constantly tossing, turning, groaning and moaning as I fought the impossible fight to find comfort. I was dangerously dehydrated by this point, after two hours of wishing water would reach me but being unable to lean over and get it, full of fear from further flashes as the sickest sickness gripped my shaking skeleton. My fever was higher than Charlie Sheen at a Playboy Mansion new year’s party, shivering and sweating, constantly covering and uncovering my aching vessel as the now working fan both froze and cooled me. My worried woman did her best to nurse me, caringly meeting my every demand, and I felt so bad being in need but unable to give.

She went back to the Rainbow for a quick dinner, leaving me there listening to the constant fireworks that rained down outside my open window. I thought that we were in the midst of a war, visions of grenades going off as I lay in my bunker, screaming out for my dead soldiers to save me. Within a few minutes, which seemed like a lifetime, she came back with more water and half of her dinner wrapped up for me. I said I couldn’t eat, then freaked the fuck out when its smell started seeping, acting like she’d brought one of the grenades into my bunker, shouting in blind panic  “GET IT OUT, PLEASE, GET IT OUT”.

She put on Arrested Development which I drifted in and out of, frequently requesting tiny sips of water which would shoot straight out of me like Spiderman’s web. A few hours later, the grip loosened, and I regained control of my mind at least, my body still belonging to the unidentified bug. I was made to take a cold shower as Sarah was really worried about my burning body and brain, putting her hand on my head with a ‘you definitely aren’t well’ look in her eye.

She put a wet sock on my hot bed-head and I snoozed until 10pm. By this time I was feeling more with it, and stated ‘I reckon it’s only a twenty-four hour thing’, thinking positively about the negativity surrounding me. I even managed to force a few crisps down, as the continuous fireworks were now reinforced by loud drum concessions that seemed to rock the night until the Sun rose again.

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