The Day

I knew this day was coming.

It comes for everyone, sooner or later. It starts with small and seemingly insignificant choices, each choice steadily becoming more and more important. Soon, one begins to shiver at the mere thought of the approaching day.

Eventually, one may cry and sniff when one thinks of the day, but these actions only serve to confirm the certainty of that day's approach.

And then the evening before the fateful day arrives, one feels the lump in the back of one's throat, the pain of a headache, the tiredness of eyes, the heaviness of a mind that has finally given up fighting the inevitable.

The day itself dawns like every other day. But it is different from every other day, because of the horrible dread it holds: that horrible hacking and coughing! That tiring sneezing and sniffing!

And now that day has come for me, just as I knew it would. I stand, crushed, incapacitated; beneath that awful weight so lightly called a common cold.