aici<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nToday I started spitting blood.<\/p>\n
The first thing that I thought was that I might have tuberculosis, which, actually,\u00a0 made me feel alright, because after all, it\u2019s a disease which sounds good; it kind of gives out\u00a0 a romantic aura:\u00a0 tuberculosis; mononucleosis, well,\u00a0 at least, I think so, and <\/em>I don\u2019t die too quickly\u2014 the worst case scenario, I\u00a0 have a few months to live, which is plenty of time for me to write a novel, or a really good short story, or, at least, some poetry, or, at the very<\/em> least, an essay–something that will be found after I croak, of which people will say, \u201cHe was a prolific writer; we\u2019ll miss him.\u00a0 He died of tuberculosis, you know.\u201d And the other person will say, \u201cOh my, I had no idea.\u201d<\/p>\nI was glad that something was happening to me that was not in my control, even though, of course, my control over my universe is very dubious.<\/p>\n
As it turns out, I don\u2019t have tuberculosis–I have pneumonia, which is so much less glamorous, but I could <\/em>still die, which is something.<\/p>\nYou see, I have this mind which tends to exaggerate and dramatize everything, so that I can possibly use it in a novel or story–I\u2019m a writer.<\/p>\n
Maybe I should just shoot myself in the head, which would stop me from thinking too much, but there I go dramatizing again.<\/p>\n
I wake up at night with my mouth full of blood, so I spit out the clots–they litter my floor, those damned blood clots.<\/p>\n
I next fill my bathtub with water so I can soak and bathe, light a cigarette to enjoy, but, no.\u00a0\u00a0 NO MORE CIGARETTES!<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always laughed at people who are trying to quit smoking, because why quit if you enjoy it? You\u2019ll die anyway, and even though I don\u2019t want to get better (don\u2019t forget) and want to die as soon as possible, I can\u2019t take a draw from a cigarette as carelessly as I used to do. It\u2019s bad for me, but I thought that I wanted it to be, but the smoke stays in my throat stinging and scratching, and won\u2019t go further, even though my lungs are drooling for it.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, ignorant on the subject, I began reading everything that I could on the Internet about pneumonia and haemoptysis.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen pictures as well– they\u2019re awesome. They\u2019d fit perfectly on a hardcore album cover!<\/p>\n
After I\u2019d gone through all of the websites, even the foreign language ones–which I translated using an on-line translation service, I purchased a medical book about lung diseases. It\u2019s great; I\u2019ll hand it down once I\u2019m dead, but I don\u2019t know to whom.<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t told anyone I\u2019m going to die–there\u2019s still time. I\u2019ll spring the news on them in a very theatrical way. I have<\/em> to direct this drama somehow. Maybe I\u2019ll even write a screenplay. They haven\u2019t realized I\u2019m spitting blood, and if it happens at night at a party, I\u2019ll go to the loo, and if someone catches me, I\u2019ll tell them its fake blood and that I\u2019m disguised as a vampire, or, maybe, that\u2019s its real blood and I am a vampire! I\u2019ll have a pair of fake vampire teeth with me all the time so as to be more credible, whichever I decide.<\/p>\nSpitting blood blends in with my recurring panic attacks. Of course they have recurred– I won\u2019t be able to die without them; I believe that at the moment you die everything you\u2019ve ever suffered flashes before your eyes, and that way you can let go more easily, but not forget who you are, so you can keep your soul straight.<\/p>\n
If what my friend, who is obsessed with finding out if God exists, says is true, and you keep your soul after death, then you need to mark it very clearly so you don\u2019t mistake it for someone else\u2019s. Because there should be some sort of little border to cross, a tiny rupture, during which you and your soul are separated for a short time. It\u2019s like putting it on a plate while you go through the metal detector. You must know which one it is, so you pick up the right one. Who knows what the souls that have shed their bodies look like; who knows,\u00a0 maybe they look alike, but marked by suffering, there is no way that one could mistake one for another, and proceed to your cell in Hell with a stranger\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n
What hell!<\/p>\n
In my dreams, the blood I spit is almost black. I feel sorry for it, after it reaches the floor. I feel sorry that it left my body and it is condemned to emaciate, to evaporate, to stop living;\u00a0 a tiny part of me that is gone forever. What bits of pain were there in these millilitres of blood? What am I left with? And when will I lose it all?<\/p>\n
The panic attacks are as violent as they were in the past, but they\u2019re more unexpected, and strike at the most inappropriate moments.<\/p>\n
One time, I was riding to the seaside with a friend in his car, and we were passing by Colentina Hospital when he remembered that he was out of cigarettes, and deciding that he couldn\u2019t wait until we reached a gas station, stopped the car,\u00a0 asked me to get out and go to the little shop by the hospital to buy of pack of Camels, and a two litre bottle of Cola.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure\u201d, I said, \u201cit\u2019s no bother at all\u201d<\/p>\n
I got out of the car, and that\u2019s when it struck! I felt I was melting; that I was going to faint.\u00a0 I had lost control of my legs, and put my hand on my forehead, wanting to chase it all away, not wanting anyone to see me; I wanted to just go into some room for five minutes and wait for it to pass. It would pass, it always does\u2014these fainting spells. But While it lasts, though, it\u2019s horrible;\u00a0 I imagine that all of my blood will leak out, and gather in a huge solid clot, and then\u00a0 I will explode.<\/p>\n
I leaned on the hospital wall, trying to focus, but couldn\u2019t. Everything was spinning, so I pulled a lock of my hair, but the pain, instead of bringing me around, seemed like a distant echo.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t feel, but knew that I was melting, and was leaving my body, leaving my life. I was dying!<\/p>\n
Just when I was in the mood to go to the seaside\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\u2018Are you OK baby?\u2019 asked this old lady with a big reed bag.\u00a0\u00a0 She had crooked legs and galoshes on her filthy feet. She was from the countryside and had come to Bucharest to get medical care.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you sick baby?\u201d she asked insistently. I didn\u2019t mention to her that I was dying.<\/p>\n
And that was it. The hag pulled me out of the arms of the devil, which was having his way with me, so I joyfully hugged and kissed her, and pulling back, she mumbled a prayer, convinced that I wasn\u2019t sick, but only pretending.<\/p>\n
I could feel my arms and legs again, I could move them, and the blood had started its normal circulation through me. I wasn\u2019t exploding anymore. That was all. I walked away safe and sound, that day at least. I was full of joy. I bought the packet of Camel, the Cola and two croissants.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the fuck took you so long?\u201d my friend with car demanded once I returned with his smokes, so I kissed him as well, and then handed him the pack of smokes.<\/p>\n
Only two days after that, it struck while I was in the water.<\/p>\n
It was morning; I had been drinking a lot, and was bathing in the sea– feeling better than ever. I hadn\u2019t spat out blood since the previous morning, and maybe because I hadn\u2019t slept and was swimming in cold, clear water, I felt great, but that was when I felt it again– it was like a huge fish had hit me in the stomach. A sticky, wet, moist thing had spread all over me and it seemed to suck out all of my insides, so I tried to grab hold of something, but all I did was splash around helplessly. First, my legs went numb, and then I slipped under water, swallowing a great deal of water.\u00a0 Maybe I could have drowned, but survived and managed to crawl to shore, my lungs filled with water. I lay on the beach for about an hour, with my knees shaking and my hands turned blue. I threw up.<\/p>\n
A chav\u00a0 couple passed, and shouted, \u201cBloody Satanists! It\u2019s eight a.m. and you\u2019re already drunk and high! You just can\u2019t get enough drugs and booze!\u201d<\/p>\n
Then I started to spit blood again, which was like coming home.\u00a0 Something familiar.<\/p>\n
In the mean time I changed my mind, and wasn\u2019t sure that I wanted to die anymore. Tomorrow, I\u2019m going to have some tests done.<\/p>\n
Maybe I\u2019ll be fine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Cristina Nemerovschi (Morgothya) (Romania) Translation from Romanian by Christine Coleman and Mircea Filimon, MTTLC student edited by Robert Fenhagen pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103 click aici Today I started spitting blood. The first thing that I thought was that I might have tuberculosis, which, actually,\u00a0 made me feel alright, because after all, it\u2019s a disease which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[507,22],"tags":[519,516,1147,520,32,403,1116],"class_list":["post-3899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-26","category-short-story","tag-christine-coleman","tag-cristina-nemerovschi","tag-egophobia-26","tag-mircea-filimon","tag-morgothya","tag-mttlc","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-10T","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3899"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4324,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899\/revisions\/4324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}