i’ve gotten to know my body and the propensity my lungs have for succumbing like the  low-self-esteemed girl at the bar to the commonest advance, so i got my ass to the doc post haste. antibiotics, cortisone, nebulizing, steaming – that’s pretty much been the routine for the past week. like a full-time, full-blown (pun intended) job.

not. so. much. fun.

but here’s the irony: today, finally i’m better. yes, i didn’t have a choice – i had to drive probably 100km and had about 5 or 6 errands which necessitated a not-so-scenic trip around greater jozi that i haven’t taken in probably 20 years. i found myself down a back road which prompted flashbacks of getting lost pre-gps/iphone days in my very first car, a tomato-red baja-bug with white roll-bars  which was my baby, till my brother decided to find out just why they were called roll-bars…

but i digress…

i’m better. stuffy-headed, but better. and yet…

i feel dis-eased. as in…

the state of not being easy…

a limbo between what was, what is, what will be…

i find myself musing, unamused.

i’m not someone who tends to get lonely – i’m usually hankering for more time alone, not because i don’t appreciate or value my loved ones, it’s just that i’m so used to getting lost in the back-alleys of my brain. not necessarily the safest of neighbourhoods, but the vagaries of which i find familiar. even the booby-traps, ambushes and stickups are vaguely known.

but maybe weeks with mainly my own company and only the occasional respite of social interaction, iteration, are taking their toll…

so i sit like some depressed demigod, watching the marionette strings, knotted, gnarled from my fingers – i watch the puppet dance or slump inert, or follow the cajoling of canines who want food, affection or to be let out or in and i’m not entirely surprised to find myself at the end of those strings.

the puppet-master.

the puppet.