In the morning my colleague Sasha
and I confabulate in the new MM boardroom in Carringbush House about the MM
program we’ve been hired to deliver, and about her departing cold and my
incipient one. I tell her I’m beating it off with exercise. She suggests rest.
We lunch at a little Thai place
in Smith Street: seven dollars for a brilliant pud thai. Sasha orders extra
chilies on the side to help her sweat off the remains of her lurgi. All
afternoon she hiccups.
Just after three I descend to
the basement and out the back door into Gipps Street and on to the station. I’m
bound for Ballarat to train mentors. I sleep on the packed six-car 4:04 to
Maryborough; I’ve been up since 5:45 to go to spin class at the gym. Georgie,
the program co-ordinator, is waiting anxiously on the corner when I come out of
the station.
The training scores a seven out
of ten from me: too much talk from me, not enough from the ten would-be mentors,
all women, and a room too small for activities to break up the talk. I stick
four biscuits in my pocket and hop on the last train back to the smoke, the
8:55. It’s all but empty. As it rocks through the darkness I feel the cold
spreading through my body in ten-minute increments.
I stand on the platform at
Southern Cross, fast-food-chain fries in my left hand, mentor training package
in my right, computer bag slung over my left shoulder, chilly wind whistling
around my bare shins. My throat is sore, my nose full, my spirits plunging.
Why? Why again? Why now? Why me?
Ten years, no colds. Now five
in two years and two in consecutive months. Where is my resistance? Sasha says
it’s being on planes. Perhaps it’s the lack of riding, the loss of fitness.
Maybe the absence of the annual free flu shots my previous employers provided for
ten years have killed my immunity.
My good woman says go to your
doctor. I’m a bloke; it’s a cold. Why would I bother a doctor? Is my good woman
suggesting something more sinister is afoot here?
Rock on.
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