Xtin v The Virus: Deuce

Better, thank all the small gods, thoughts barely managing to glance around the corner into clarity in time to S-Bahn it to Friedrichstraße and pick up Bladerunner from the marathon, smiling his curly-eyed smile and damp with rain, salty and bedazzled with exhaustion and a medal. I chomp huge breaths of cold, dropletty air, delighted to be able to breathe and I am outside, outside, outside! Noises and birds and buildings, voices and run-off in the gutters, people, people. They've all got leftover coughs, too. Still the velvety desire to sleep muffles me all day, tideline of tissues and ibuprofen around the bed and my god, I want to boil the sheets and take the kind of shower that washes off the dirt that plans to be on you next week.