I’m so tired of this illness, I wonder if an acting-led approach to faking wellness might help me recover
It is late morning on a Wednesday, and I’m sitting at the kitchen table collapsing in on myself, because I am ill. I feel dizzy, and feverish, and achy, and I have done for two days. I’m gently resting my damp forehead on the table when my wife walks in.
“I don’t understand why you have to act,” my wife says.
“What?” I say, swivelling one red eye up to look at her.
“Why do you always have to act like you’re ill?” she says. “Why can’t you just be ill?”
“All the groaning, all the sighing,” she says.
“The cough is a symptom, not an affectation,” I say.
“I took all the pills,” I say. “There are no pills left.”
The truth is that the nature of my illness is a little bit episodic. It tends to let up for an hour or two in the afternoons – the aches vanish, the cough abates, my head clears – only to reassert itself around dusk. Under these circumstances, it seems to me a consistent display of discomfort across the day helps the casual observer understand the condition in the round.
