DANGEROUS MICROBES
I remember one morning when my squinting eyes fought hard against the arrival of a new day. They focused on a cleaner, silently stalking around my room.
I dreaded these times.
"How are you?” I inquired, without caring about the response. I slipped deeper below the sheets as I had caught the attention of the unshaven man, whose colourless, disinterested eyes reflected a poor level of job satisfaction. I was in no position to feel sorry for him, nor to ponder his seeming lack of zest for life. I thought him to be a grubby ¬looking man, and that worried me.
Of course, it was my paranoia that led me to this conclusion. I have no doubt that he was as clean as any other Alfred Hospital employee who regularly entered my room. But my imagination was fertile.
Time stood still as I waited for the man to answer. He seemed spellbound by the lethargic stroke of his mop, and I tried to erase unkind thoughts of countless bacteria finding refuge in his thick coverage of body hair. I knew that infection could seriously threaten my recovery.
"O.K.," he replied, then left. I heaved a sigh of relief, but I still breathed from below my sheets for several more minutes. I had hoped that he wouldn't notice how I was trying to filter my air through the bedcovers.
