The sun
was shining; my beach house was so close to the Pacific I could hear
the waves perpetual churn; the morning mist was beginning to burn
away from the cloud forest and I was in the bathroom with my head
down the toilet wanting to die.
A Poorly Poet in Paradise |
Every
action has an equal and opposite reaction, so Newton would have us
believe. In my case, I ate guacamole made by a hippie (who was more
concerned about the colour and energy of her food than washing her
hands) and got dysentery.
It's said the only things you can be certain of in this world are death and taxes, but in South America you can throw food poisoning into the adage. In my first two months in Ecuador I had no fewer than three separate doses, ranging from good, old-fashioned e-coli to the more exotic parasitic sicknesses of amoebic dysentery.
Of course,
my latest illness was just another dose of dysentery but my
fevered-imagination cooked-up a direr diagnosis. I was in Ayampe, on
the sweltering equatorial coast, where dengue fever and malaria can
thrive. In fact, the Kiwi surf-dude who lived next door was just
recovering from a nasty dose of dengue, AKA break-bone fever,
so-called because your muscles spasm so tightly it feels as if your
bones might shatter under the strain.
Strange,
dark thoughts went through my mind in the crisis of illness. I've
always had a romantic inclination, and after three days without food
and only tepid water to sip I was beginning to construct a little
Keatsian fantasy, propped-up in my Roman deathbed, vainly fighting
the final throes of tuberculosis. In fact, I even composed a little
poem in my head which I jotted down when I felt better.
With
nothing but my imagination for company, I became convinced of its
merit. Naturally, when I had recovered and read the poem back with a
saner mind it was toe-curlingly pretentious. I was going to destroy
it, but that would have been vainglorious – besides, it's hilarious.
Life
Through a Mosquito Net
Beyond
this stately pleasure dome,
A thousand
hungry creatures creep,
Barbarians
at the gates of Rome,
Come haunt
my fitful sleep.
Swat
bloated, bloody bodies red,
To end
their blind vampiric thirst,
I'm told
from sweat-soaked fever bed,
“You're
almost through the worst.”
The net
throws smoky shimmers,
To weave
the world anew.
In the sun
it almost glimmers,
In the
night so white it's blue.
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