Robert Dighton: Dev'lish Cold, from A Set of Heads (c. 1795)

"Achoo! [Bless You!] Bless us all!"

I've had something like a HeadCold haunting me over the last week. It's been sneaky because its sole tell has been a clogged left ear. No runny nose. No overwhelming sneezing. No cough or phlegmy throat, just that otherwise innocuous yet annoying clogged ear. I bought some decongestants, which, carrying on the proud tradition of decongestants throughout history, worked just a little worse than nose-picking. The primary symptom has been modest disorientation. I'll be writing a story at my deck when I suddenly sense myself listing slightly to the left. I felt weary then, as if I needed to lie down for a minute. These sensations distract me from my mission, though I have so far been able to stave off completely caving into them. However, I have been begging off working in the springtime yard in favor of lengthy naps. As we enter my favorite season after a protracted and unusually discouraging winter, I've been slinking around, so I sense something's wrong. The HeadCold hardly seems to qualify as an explanatory diagnosis.

Then, I caught onto an underlying significance. If I ask myself what's different since this NextWorld began manifesting, the discernable difference seems similar to my slightly mysterious HeadCold. The usual symptoms might not be evident, but something's different and persistent. The typical decongestant doesn't seem to cut through the symptoms, so I'm suffering, not overtly or terribly, but subtly, perhaps a worse form of suffering than the more immediately overwhelming sort. It's an additional background burden, accompanying me every waking minute of every freaking day. It saps my enthusiasm and energy and, most interestingly, will not go away! This seems to be the stuff insanity's made of, a subtle difference that heralds much greater significance than its symptoms suggest. On the surface, it seems as though it should be eminently ignorable. In practice, it won't shake loose. It's an annoying hitchhiker that is upsetting my former balance.

Was this how Biden's presidency seemed to the MAGA whackos? And Obama's? What I found profoundly reassuring in their administrations might have seemed annoyingly upsetting to them. However, I hold little empathy for their experience, if it was at all like mine has been for this current regime. Their's seemed irrational by comparison, all racist and sexist and downright unAmerican-ist. Mine seems more justified, for I rightly feel horrified by the irrational lawlessness employed by the fresh incumbent. His governance makes no sense to someone immersed in this country's history and traditions. His approach seems just as justified as any HeadCold's. He's an infection, while Biden's and Obama's administrations sure seemed more like cures, especially since both came into office after lengthy periods of threatening illness: Bush's near decade of futile War on a noun and Trump's utterly inept and deadly capitulation to Covid. Given the comparison, the NextWorld administration seems like a reinfection; my HeadCold merely reflects my tardy realization.

If I can manage to get through the security protocols guarding the patient portal, I might contact my doctor tomorrow to see if he might have another idea of what might be wrong with me, for something's obviously wrong. There's also something equally obviously wrong with our new administration- that can't seem bothered to administer anything. I suspect some bitter medication lies between the current situation and anything like a cure. Some insist that this infection might be the death of us, though the current status seems far from terminal. It might be more of a walking pneumonia or even an immature case of the infamous boogy-woogy flu. Who knew that I could catch whatever our NextWorld society suddenly has? I've been laying low, keeping up my correspondence but begging off outside meetings. I cannot know if I'm communicable, and I ache to feel as though I'm responsible for something decent. Lord knows our new incumbent isn't. I have been hearing stories from all over about how terrible the usual colds and flu have been this year, settling in chests and lingering for weeks. COVID-19 and measles have been surging, too, under the careless tutoring of our ignorant incumbent. Maybe both his ears are clogged, rendering him deaf as well as dumb and blind. Conservative estimates suggest he was responsible for three-quarters of a million Covid deaths during his first term in office. I shudder to imagine what his operation might transform the once-common HeadCold into. Achoo! [Bless You!] Bless us all!

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #NextWorld, #PureSchmaltz