To catch the moment of disconnection fever brings, to linger in that space between rational consciousness and raving blackness is a wonderful opportunity. With real and dangerous fever the difficulty would be the possibility of simply dying at the end of it and not being able to return with the fruits of discovery.
Is this a real and dangerous fever? I cannot see it so. But in the land of euphemism I pass as fully sighted. In point of fact I am a One-eyed Jack. The strangest thing is that since diabetes removed one of my eyes I see more than ever I did before.
Fever becomes as a kaleidoscope, a binocular, a viewfinder, a mirror, a microscope. It is a tool box full of optical miracles.
Fever and again fever. Through my shirt the smell of boiled cabbage seeps out. When I am sick I smell like a 1950s school dinner. The smell hardens and cakes on me, a thin coating of vanilla wax that flakes off when I turn and fills the bed with crumbs that smell of almonds. I remember the 1957 pandemic, the lines of iron beds, the coughing school boys, the smell of camphor and Dettol, the starched Matron in her razor sharp vestments stalking the early hours with her clipboard like a valkyrie.
Somewhere in the cottage I have forgotten to turn off the washing machine. It thumps and thumps like a drunken giant copulating doggedly in the kitchen without being able to reach a climax.
Long legged spiders hanging in the ceiling corners are eating midges like chips. They scatter their remains on the skirting board, seaside vandals dropping their garbage. Winkle shells crunch underfoot on the promenade. As I watch I see they are Christmas decorations left behind, long after Twelfth Night, glittering with dust. This is the evening of the Second Night.
I can hear the crass and audible prostitution of a TV talk show left behind in the akashic record. I think I am not well.
The handl
es on the dresser, art-designed from rods of welding iron, are in the shape of hands and fingers. When you sleep they reach out and gouge you. I do not sleep. There is no sleep in fever. I am running naked in the garden under the red spot of Mars, the night breeze cooling my eyes. In this black of night there are marvellous colours, the fever hues. It would be worth being febrile always to see this richness of reds and blues and woody tints. Fever: the Old Ram is just a little boy. Perhaps some night bug caught me as I wandered around naked among the lilies looking up at Mars blazing red yellow in the South. Perhaps Mars bit me. The fever came, red and yellow and then with a deluge of black scowers and then a descent into one of the Deep Dark Pits I so carefully keep like a secure safe deposit box in a secret distant country.
Is this a real and dangerous fever? I cannot see it so. But in the land of euphemism I pass as fully sighted. In point of fact I am a One-eyed Jack. The strangest thing is that since diabetes removed one of my eyes I see more than ever I did before.
Fever becomes as a kaleidoscope, a binocular, a viewfinder, a mirror, a microscope. It is a tool box full of optical miracles.
Fever and again fever. Through my shirt the smell of boiled cabbage seeps out. When I am sick I smell like a 1950s school dinner. The smell hardens and cakes on me, a thin coating of vanilla wax that flakes off when I turn and fills the bed with crumbs that smell of almonds. I remember the 1957 pandemic, the lines of iron beds, the coughing school boys, the smell of camphor and Dettol, the starched Matron in her razor sharp vestments stalking the early hours with her clipboard like a valkyrie.
Somewhere in the cottage I have forgotten to turn off the washing machine. It thumps and thumps like a drunken giant copulating doggedly in the kitchen without being able to reach a climax.
Long legged spiders hanging in the ceiling corners are eating midges like chips. They scatter their remains on the skirting board, seaside vandals dropping their garbage. Winkle shells crunch underfoot on the promenade. As I watch I see they are Christmas decorations left behind, long after Twelfth Night, glittering with dust. This is the evening of the Second Night.
I can hear the crass and audible prostitution of a TV talk show left behind in the akashic record. I think I am not well.
The handl
es on the dresser, art-designed from rods of welding iron, are in the shape of hands and fingers. When you sleep they reach out and gouge you. I do not sleep. There is no sleep in fever. I am running naked in the garden under the red spot of Mars, the night breeze cooling my eyes. In this black of night there are marvellous colours, the fever hues. It would be worth being febrile always to see this richness of reds and blues and woody tints. Fever: the Old Ram is just a little boy. Perhaps some night bug caught me as I wandered around naked among the lilies looking up at Mars blazing red yellow in the South. Perhaps Mars bit me. The fever came, red and yellow and then with a deluge of black scowers and then a descent into one of the Deep Dark Pits I so carefully keep like a secure safe deposit box in a secret distant country. 
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