You Got The Rona?

I started work early, so by 10am, I was ready for a bike ride.

I got to the bike path heading along Park Street, in fact, I was about to hit Lygon Street when the tickle in my throat turned nasty. I pulled up and coughed repeatedly. It wouldn’t stop, and it had all the tell-tale signs of hay fever. I’d not taken a hay fever tablet before I left, it never occurred to me to take one, but clearly it was a bad day for hay fever.

The strap from my helmet didn’t help at moments like those either, as it kind of pushed on my throat making the coughing worst.

I coughed and coughed. That tickle wouldn’t clear.

Cough, cough, cough. Trying to clear it only seemed to make it worse.

And I coughed some more. It wasn’t going away.

Cough, cough, cough. Jesus fuck me Christ why won’t it go away?

A blond haired chick reading on the grass with her back to me looked around with a look of concern. People started moving away from me, and people started taking a wide birth around as they walked passed. People looked. People stared.

Cough, cough, cough. I could still feel it in the back of my throat like a needle. My eyes were watering.

They thought I had the Rona, I suspected. I could see it by the expression in their eyes, it looked like fear, which almost made me laugh. Almost, if I could have stopped the cough, that is. People were, actually, walking a wide circle around me.

And the cough wouldn’t stop. I thought it would clear, but it didn’t. I contemplated continuing my ride, but thought I’d probably just cough more, up further. And a cough is how my hay fever comes on now a days.

I decided I had to go home, so I turned around.

Only one woman with a kid asked, “Are you alright?”

“Yes, thanks, I’m okay, I just I forgot to take a hay fever tablet. Silly me.”

“Yes, I was coughing the same,” she said. “Just before, it is a bad day for it.”

“Yeah, it’s my own fault, I just need to take a hay fever tablet and I’ll be fine.”

I rode off in the direction of home.

Only one person asked me if I was okay. I guess that is what a pandemic does? Or is that normal? I suspect the latter, maybe unkindly.

I rode back along the bike path. My throat still tickled a bit. My helmet strap continued to irritate it, but I wouldn’t have felt the same if I’d undone it.

The sun shone.