Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

I’ve been under the weather. It doesn’t matter whether it is the flu, or a chest cold, or a sinus infection – the result is the same. I do not feel like myself, although I’m not sure who I feel like instead. Maybe an immigration processor. One on Ellis Island.

The bug that resides in me is waiting for immigration clearance, so that it can find another home. But for some reason, rather than flitting through my body and moving on, it has been detained. It must stay here, in me, until the proper papers have been processed and the proper waiting period has been enforced.

Regarding papers, I offer cash register receipts from Walgreen’s to testify that I have purchased the correct over-the-counter medication to make me feel better. Not that they do. But at least I have complied. As for the proper waiting period, I believe this means living through the next seven to ten days, so that my bug can de-bug itself before moving on. I’m in Day Five.

I visited the real Ellis Island on two occasions and was struck with how flesh-and-blood immigrants could be torn from their families at a moment’s notice to spend a required quarantine time in the facility’s medical units. How frightening that must have been, especially if the person involved did not speak English.

I doubt my bug speaks English either, but I have less sympathy for it. I wish it only to be gone.