That is what terrifies me
Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles kicks off our June prompts with a stunner: what terrifies us?
Vidya, this hits close to home! Here is a dispatch from the battlefield.
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Yesterday, a few minutes before the sun arrived, I scurried out the front porch door of the cream colored house across the street from the children’s playground in the photo.
My burst of energy surprised me, as I had been homebound with an infectious skin rash for almost three weeks. Before the Hand, Mouth, and Foot virus invaded my person, I was a healthy 77-year-old senior who golfed, hiked, mowed, and managed our household compost and recycling bins.
The latter required a regular three-mile jaunt behind the wheel of my eco-friendly 2018 Subaru Forester during which I listened to one of Bob Dylan’s forty albums.
If I were Bob’s 84, would I have survived this assault?
After the ceasefire, on the terms set by the conqueror, my body began the long road to recovery which, in plain terms, meant sitting on the front porch on warm, sunny days watching the world go by.
At first, I only had the strength to observe. My books and writing instruments sat useless next to the anti-viral horse pills I could not grasp or lift.
Then, much to my surprise, one day a thought intruded on my passivity. At first, I ignored it, too panic-stricken to take it seriously. But once my guard was breached, other traitorous morale-busting troops poured through with this ominous message.
Someday, in the not-too-distant future, the everyday sun-infused energy and the collective boisterous power of a gaggle of children playing a short distance away will not be enough to reanimate this old man.
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