consumption

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou amoungst the leaves has never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs.
-Keats, Ode to a Nightingale


i remember telling my mother, when i was still quite young, that i thought consumption was a romantic way to die. she was appalled, rightly so, and sensing that it was an ugly topic i never spoke of it again. still, to this day, every time there is a reference to someone dying of TB it catches my attention and holds it. i can't say why i have such an odd and morbid fascination. i can only say that i do. i wanted to kill my favorite character of all time in such a fashion, but since the disease is mostly relegated to the past, i had to settle on a broken heart. i've never felt quite right about the compromise - i still visualize it as i initially did despite how the story was actually told.

reading about Keats by the light of a few candles i was fascinated to read about his father dying after falling from a horse, just as the emperor's father had. but i was even more engrossed when i read that his mother and brother died of consumption, Keats himself not long to follow at the age of 26. on the night of February 3rd, 1820, he coughed up blood, and upon seeing the blood on his hand, he said, "I cannot be deceived in that colour; that drop of blood is my death warrant. I must die." i found myself imagining the poor man wasting away in Italy, a bloodstained handkerchief in his pale hand, and i found it sad yet romantic. nevermind the fact that it is, in reality, a decisively awful and unpoetic way to go. as i said, i can't say why i have such an oddly skewed view.

i myself am extremely ill as i write this. more so than i have been in years. i feel certain that if only i could sleep through the fevers and the coughing i might feel better. or if only i could stay inside where it is warm rather than trudging through still snowy streets to attend a long day of poorly heated lectures. unfortunately neither has been possible. i lost my voice days ago and it still hasn't returned. this is, i suspect, due to the fact that i've been coughing so violently that my throat is raw and painful. therefore, it should have come as no surprise that i just had a coughing spell and pulled my hand away to find flecks of blood. however, having just spent the past hour with a man dying of consumption, i stared at my hand in a horror i can only describe as deafening.

the moment has passed. my coughing has abated and i've washed away the blood and drank a glass of water. still, i find myself tracing a finger over my palm, still seeing the blood as though i'm in the last act of some Shakespearean tragedy. i keep seeing it, impossibly red against the whiteness of my skin. i keep seeing it, as though i've seen it a thousand times before. and though i know otherwise, i keep seeing it and thinking, is that the rosy kiss of death?